2018-02-22T06:44:44ZRoom-temperature relaxor ferroelectricity and photovoltaic effects in tin titanate directly deposited on Si substratehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/12676
Tin titanate (SnTiO3) has been notoriously impossible to prepare as a thin-film ferroelectric, probably because high-temperature annealing converts much of the Sn2+ to Sn4+. In the present paper, we show two things: first, perovskite phase SnTiO3 can be prepared by ALD directly onto p-type Si substrates; and second, these films exhibit ferroelectric switching at room temperature, with p-type Si acting as electrodes. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements reveal that the film is single-phase, preferred-orientation ferroelectric perovskite SnTiO3. Our films showed well-saturated, square and repeatable hysteresis loopsof around 3 μC/cm2 remnant polarization at room temperature, as detected by out-of-plane polarization versus electric field (P-E) and field cycling measurements. Furthermore, photovoltaic and photoferroelectricity were found in Pt/SnTiO3/Si/SnTiO3/Pt heterostructures, of which properties can be tuned through band gap engineering by strain according to the first-principles calculations. This is a new lead-free room-temperature ferroelectric oxide of potential device application.
2018-02-05T00:00:00ZAgarwal, RSharma, YChang, SPitike, KSohn, CNakhmanson, STakoudis, CLee, HTonelli, RGardner, JonathanScott, James FloydKatiyar, RHong, STin titanate (SnTiO3) has been notoriously impossible to prepare as a thin-film ferroelectric, probably because high-temperature annealing converts much of the Sn2+ to Sn4+. In the present paper, we show two things: first, perovskite phase SnTiO3 can be prepared by ALD directly onto p-type Si substrates; and second, these films exhibit ferroelectric switching at room temperature, with p-type Si acting as electrodes. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements reveal that the film is single-phase, preferred-orientation ferroelectric perovskite SnTiO3. Our films showed well-saturated, square and repeatable hysteresis loopsof around 3 μC/cm2 remnant polarization at room temperature, as detected by out-of-plane polarization versus electric field (P-E) and field cycling measurements. Furthermore, photovoltaic and photoferroelectricity were found in Pt/SnTiO3/Si/SnTiO3/Pt heterostructures, of which properties can be tuned through band gap engineering by strain according to the first-principles calculations. This is a new lead-free room-temperature ferroelectric oxide of potential device application.Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrimshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/12594
2017-12-01T00:00:00ZHarris-Birtill, RoseEric Linklater, Private Angelo (1946)http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12411
Recommends Linklater's novel about World War II in Italy as "a book that cherishes national difference while utterly condemning nationalism," "as much a book for 2017 as it was for 1946," and "a sharply observant satire dissecting the male vanity, national hubris and hypocrisy behind the 'logic' of war."
2017-12-18T00:00:00ZPlain, GillRecommends Linklater's novel about World War II in Italy as "a book that cherishes national difference while utterly condemning nationalism," "as much a book for 2017 as it was for 1946," and "a sharply observant satire dissecting the male vanity, national hubris and hypocrisy behind the 'logic' of war."Relocating Iphigénie en Tauridehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/12402
This article reflects upon the director’s experience of directing Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with a student opera company (Byre Opera) in June 2015, and in particular insights gained about the topical issues raised by this work. Discussion of this particular production is laid alongside reviews of other, professional productions of this piece in the same year, which reveal a range of possible reactions to the potential for Gluck’s composition to be read as reflecting contemporary anxieties and concerns. The article engages with an earlier essay by Michael Ewans in SMT 9:2, 2015, developing and qualifying suggestions made by Ewans about the classical framing of Gluck’s opera to make the work relatable for modern audiences. It concludes that the classical location is used to position a very specific and not necessarily trans-historical set of topical and political resonances; this places a gap between mimetic representation and reality that should be carefully considered by any company hoping to produce the work using a contemporary realist staging.
2017-05-22T00:00:00ZPettegree, Jane KarenThis article reflects upon the director’s experience of directing Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with a student opera company (Byre Opera) in June 2015, and in particular insights gained about the topical issues raised by this work. Discussion of this particular production is laid alongside reviews of other, professional productions of this piece in the same year, which reveal a range of possible reactions to the potential for Gluck’s composition to be read as reflecting contemporary anxieties and concerns. The article engages with an earlier essay by Michael Ewans in SMT 9:2, 2015, developing and qualifying suggestions made by Ewans about the classical framing of Gluck’s opera to make the work relatable for modern audiences. It concludes that the classical location is used to position a very specific and not necessarily trans-historical set of topical and political resonances; this places a gap between mimetic representation and reality that should be carefully considered by any company hoping to produce the work using a contemporary realist staging.Profitability and play in urban satirical pamphlets, 1575–1625http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12277
This thesis reconstructs the genre of urban satirical pamphleteering. It contends that the pamphlets of Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, and Barnaby Rich are stylistically and generically akin. Writing in a relatively undefined form, these pamphleteers share an interest in describing contemporary London, and employ an experimental style characterised by its satirical energy. In addition, they negotiate a series of tensions between profitability and play. In the early modern period, ‘profit’ was variously conceived as financial, moral, or rooted in public service. Pamphleteers attempted to reconcile these senses of profitability. At the same time, they produced playful works that are self-consciously mocking, that incorporate alternative perspectives, and that are generically hybrid. To varying degrees, urban satirical pamphlets can be defined in relation to the concepts of profitability and play. Chapter One introduces the concept of moral profitability through an examination of Elizabethan moralistic pamphlets. In particular, it analyses the anxious response to profitability contained in Philip Stubbes’s Anatomie of Abuses (1583). Chapter Two argues that Greene disrupted appeals to totalising profitability, and instead demonstrated the alternative potential of play. Chapter Three examines Nashe’s notoriously evasive pamphlets, contending that he embraced play in response to the potential profitlessness of pamphleteering. Chapter Four argues that although Dekker and Middleton rejected absolutist notions of profitability, their pamphlets redirect stylistic play towards compassionate social commentary. Finally, Chapter Five explores Rich’s relocation of moralistic conventions in pamphlets that are presented as both honest and mocking. Taken as a whole, this thesis re-evaluates the style and genre of urban satirical pamphleteering. It reveals that this frequently overlooked literary form was deeply invested in defining and critiquing the purpose of literature.
2018-06-26T00:00:00ZHasler, Rebecca LouiseThis thesis reconstructs the genre of urban satirical pamphleteering. It contends that the pamphlets of Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, and Barnaby Rich are stylistically and generically akin. Writing in a relatively undefined form, these pamphleteers share an interest in describing contemporary London, and employ an experimental style characterised by its satirical energy. In addition, they negotiate a series of tensions between profitability and play. In the early modern period, ‘profit’ was variously conceived as financial, moral, or rooted in public service. Pamphleteers attempted to reconcile these senses of profitability. At the same time, they produced playful works that are self-consciously mocking, that incorporate alternative perspectives, and that are generically hybrid. To varying degrees, urban satirical pamphlets can be defined in relation to the concepts of profitability and play. Chapter One introduces the concept of moral profitability through an examination of Elizabethan moralistic pamphlets. In particular, it analyses the anxious response to profitability contained in Philip Stubbes’s Anatomie of Abuses (1583). Chapter Two argues that Greene disrupted appeals to totalising profitability, and instead demonstrated the alternative potential of play. Chapter Three examines Nashe’s notoriously evasive pamphlets, contending that he embraced play in response to the potential profitlessness of pamphleteering. Chapter Four argues that although Dekker and Middleton rejected absolutist notions of profitability, their pamphlets redirect stylistic play towards compassionate social commentary. Finally, Chapter Five explores Rich’s relocation of moralistic conventions in pamphlets that are presented as both honest and mocking. Taken as a whole, this thesis re-evaluates the style and genre of urban satirical pamphleteering. It reveals that this frequently overlooked literary form was deeply invested in defining and critiquing the purpose of literature.Masculinity and manliness in the work of Elizabeth Gaskellhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/12268
Mid-nineteenth-century England saw great social transformation in the face of industrialisation, changing working and living conditions, and voting reforms, and with these changes came new conceptions of masculinity and what it meant to be a man and a gentleman. Though much critical attention has been given to Elizabeth Gaskell’s representation of women—not surprisingly, given titles such as Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton, Cousin Phillis, and Ruth—her works span class, region, time, and genre to grapple with ideas of masculinity. This thesis aims to explore her understanding of masculine identity as a social construct, to examine the representation of manliness in her novels, and to consider how her writing engages with Victorian ideologies of masculinity. The introduction provides context on Gaskell’s background and Unitarian faith, discourses of sympathy, Victorian manliness, and masculinity studies. The thesis is presented in three sections, each comprising two chapters. The first examines working-class masculinity and the gentleman in her industrial fiction; the second explores intertextuality, examining the ways in which she borrows and transforms notions of masculinity from contemporaries’ works; and the third examines her representation of previous models of manhood in her historical fiction. Together, these sections reveal that Gaskell views masculinity not as monolithic but rather as relational and shaped by many contexts, from regional identity and historic change to intertextuality and sympathy, which echo throughout her entire oeuvre; in examining her longer fiction in juxtaposition, this thesis makes it clear that just as Gaskell views masculinity as a category that cannot be neatly contained, she systematically excludes male characters from her resolutions, struggling to contain her models of masculinity within the form of the novel. The appendix, based on archival research, presents a list of the books that Elizabeth and/or William Gaskell borrowed between 1850 and 1865 from Manchester’s Portico Library.
2017-06-20T00:00:00ZHealy, MeghanMid-nineteenth-century England saw great social transformation in the face of industrialisation, changing working and living conditions, and voting reforms, and with these changes came new conceptions of masculinity and what it meant to be a man and a gentleman. Though much critical attention has been given to Elizabeth Gaskell’s representation of women—not surprisingly, given titles such as Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton, Cousin Phillis, and Ruth—her works span class, region, time, and genre to grapple with ideas of masculinity. This thesis aims to explore her understanding of masculine identity as a social construct, to examine the representation of manliness in her novels, and to consider how her writing engages with Victorian ideologies of masculinity. The introduction provides context on Gaskell’s background and Unitarian faith, discourses of sympathy, Victorian manliness, and masculinity studies. The thesis is presented in three sections, each comprising two chapters. The first examines working-class masculinity and the gentleman in her industrial fiction; the second explores intertextuality, examining the ways in which she borrows and transforms notions of masculinity from contemporaries’ works; and the third examines her representation of previous models of manhood in her historical fiction. Together, these sections reveal that Gaskell views masculinity not as monolithic but rather as relational and shaped by many contexts, from regional identity and historic change to intertextuality and sympathy, which echo throughout her entire oeuvre; in examining her longer fiction in juxtaposition, this thesis makes it clear that just as Gaskell views masculinity as a category that cannot be neatly contained, she systematically excludes male characters from her resolutions, struggling to contain her models of masculinity within the form of the novel. The appendix, based on archival research, presents a list of the books that Elizabeth and/or William Gaskell borrowed between 1850 and 1865 from Manchester’s Portico Library.Mitchell's mandalas : mapping David Mitchell's textual universehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/12255
This study uses the Tibetan mandala, a Buddhist meditation aid and sacred artform, as a secular critical model by which to analyse the complete fictions of author David Mitchell. Discussing his novels, short stories and libretti, this study maps the author’s fictions as an interconnected world-system whose re-evaluation of secular belief in galvanising compassionate ethical action is revealed by a critical comparison with the mandala’s methods of world-building. Using the mandala as an interpretive tool to critique the author’s Buddhist influences, this thesis reads the mandala as a metaphysical map, a fitting medium for mapping the author’s ethical worldview. The introduction evaluates critical structures already suggested to describe the author’s worlds, and introduces the mandala as an alternative which more fully addresses Mitchell’s fictional terrain. Chapter I investigates the mandala’s cartographic properties, mapping Mitchell’s short stories as integral islandic narratives within his fictional world which, combined, re-evaluate the role of secular belief in galvanising positive ethical action. Chapter II discusses the Tibetan sand mandala in diaspora as a form of performance when created for unfamiliar audiences, reading its cross-cultural deployment in parallel with the regenerative approaches to tragedy in the author’s libretti Wake and Sunken Garden. Chapter III identifies Mitchell’s use of reincarnation as a form of non-linear temporality that advocates future-facing ethical action in the face of humanitarian crises, reading the reincarnated Marinus as a form of secular bodhisattva. Chapter IV deconstructs the mandala to address its theoretical limitations, identifying the panopticon as its sinister counterpart, and analysing its effects in number9dream. Chapter V shifts this study’s use of the mandala from interpretive tool to emerging category, identifying the transferrable traits that form the emerging category of mandalic literature within other post-secular contemporary fictions, discussing works by Michael Ondaatje, Ali Smith, Yann Martel, Will Self, and Margaret Atwood.
2017-06-20T00:00:00ZHarris-Birtill, RosemaryThis study uses the Tibetan mandala, a Buddhist meditation aid and sacred artform, as a secular critical model by which to analyse the complete fictions of author David Mitchell. Discussing his novels, short stories and libretti, this study maps the author’s fictions as an interconnected world-system whose re-evaluation of secular belief in galvanising compassionate ethical action is revealed by a critical comparison with the mandala’s methods of world-building. Using the mandala as an interpretive tool to critique the author’s Buddhist influences, this thesis reads the mandala as a metaphysical map, a fitting medium for mapping the author’s ethical worldview. The introduction evaluates critical structures already suggested to describe the author’s worlds, and introduces the mandala as an alternative which more fully addresses Mitchell’s fictional terrain. Chapter I investigates the mandala’s cartographic properties, mapping Mitchell’s short stories as integral islandic narratives within his fictional world which, combined, re-evaluate the role of secular belief in galvanising positive ethical action. Chapter II discusses the Tibetan sand mandala in diaspora as a form of performance when created for unfamiliar audiences, reading its cross-cultural deployment in parallel with the regenerative approaches to tragedy in the author’s libretti Wake and Sunken Garden. Chapter III identifies Mitchell’s use of reincarnation as a form of non-linear temporality that advocates future-facing ethical action in the face of humanitarian crises, reading the reincarnated Marinus as a form of secular bodhisattva. Chapter IV deconstructs the mandala to address its theoretical limitations, identifying the panopticon as its sinister counterpart, and analysing its effects in number9dream. Chapter V shifts this study’s use of the mandala from interpretive tool to emerging category, identifying the transferrable traits that form the emerging category of mandalic literature within other post-secular contemporary fictions, discussing works by Michael Ondaatje, Ali Smith, Yann Martel, Will Self, and Margaret Atwood.The ‘New Prince’ and the problem of lawmaking violence in early modern dramahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11969
The present thesis examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. The thesis will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. I will demonstrate that while the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.
2014-09-01T00:00:00ZMajumder, DoyeetaThe present thesis examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. The thesis will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. I will demonstrate that while the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.Women writing women : gender and representation in British 'Golden Age' crime fictionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11910
In this thesis, I examine representations of women and gender in British ‘Golden Age’ crime fiction by writers including Margery Allingham, Christianna Brand, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey and Patricia Wentworth. I argue that portrayals of women in these narratives are ambivalent, both advocating a modern, active model of femininity, while also displaying with their resolutions an emphasis on domesticity and on maintaining a heteronormative order, and that this ambivalence provides a means to deal with anxieties about women’s place in society. This thesis is divided thematically, beginning with a chapter on historical context which provides an overview of the period’s key social tensions. Chapter II explores depictions of women who do not conform to the heteronormative order, such as spinsters, lesbians and ‘fallen’ women. Chapter III looks at the ways in which the courtships and marriages of detective couples attempt to negotiate the ideal of companionate marriage and the pressures of a ‘cult of domesticity’. Chapter IV considers the ways in which depictions of women in schools, universities and the workplace are used to explore the tensions between an expanding role in the public sphere and the demand to inhabit traditionally domestic roles. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the image of female victims’ and female killers’ bodies and the ways in which such depictions can be seen to expose issues of gender, class and identity. Through its examination of a wide variety of texts and writers in the period 1920 to the late 1940s, this thesis investigates the ambivalent nature of modes of femininity depicted in Golden Age crime fiction written by women, and argues that seemingly conservative resolutions are often attempts to provide a ‘modern-yet-safe’ solution to the conflicts raised in the texts.
2012-11-01T00:00:00ZHoffman, MeganIn this thesis, I examine representations of women and gender in British ‘Golden Age’ crime fiction by writers including Margery Allingham, Christianna Brand, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey and Patricia Wentworth. I argue that portrayals of women in these narratives are ambivalent, both advocating a modern, active model of femininity, while also displaying with their resolutions an emphasis on domesticity and on maintaining a heteronormative order, and that this ambivalence provides a means to deal with anxieties about women’s place in society. This thesis is divided thematically, beginning with a chapter on historical context which provides an overview of the period’s key social tensions. Chapter II explores depictions of women who do not conform to the heteronormative order, such as spinsters, lesbians and ‘fallen’ women. Chapter III looks at the ways in which the courtships and marriages of detective couples attempt to negotiate the ideal of companionate marriage and the pressures of a ‘cult of domesticity’. Chapter IV considers the ways in which depictions of women in schools, universities and the workplace are used to explore the tensions between an expanding role in the public sphere and the demand to inhabit traditionally domestic roles. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the image of female victims’ and female killers’ bodies and the ways in which such depictions can be seen to expose issues of gender, class and identity. Through its examination of a wide variety of texts and writers in the period 1920 to the late 1940s, this thesis investigates the ambivalent nature of modes of femininity depicted in Golden Age crime fiction written by women, and argues that seemingly conservative resolutions are often attempts to provide a ‘modern-yet-safe’ solution to the conflicts raised in the texts.'Imperfect adumbrations' : boys, men, and masculinities in the work of Virginia Woolfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11907
This thesis will suggest how Woolf scholarship’s rich exploration of Virginia Woolf’s representations of girls, women and femininities may be complemented by more systematic feminist study of constructs of masculinities, as they appear in her work. Elaborating the concept of the ‘private brother’, the figure of a form of maleness that the daughters of educated men ‘have reason to respect’, but that Three Guineas’ narrator stipulates is ‘sunk’ by men’s exposure to society and replaced by the ‘monstrous male’, my thesis will focus particularly on the representations of boys, men and masculinities in To the Lighthouse, Between the Acts and Woolf’s biography Roger Fry, though I will additionally use material from Woolf’s essays, diaries and letters, as well as from Mrs Dalloway, The Years and The Pargiters. The first section of my thesis will supplement feminist critiques of the education received by upper-middle-class English boys in Woolf’s texts by exploring her representations of young male (inter)subjectivities in the process of being ‘sunk.’ In the second section, I will complicate the narrative trajectories often indicated for these characters in Woolf criticism by proposing that Woolf understood this sinking process as always incomplete: I will argue that Woolf’s adult male characters, even her patriarchs, professors and otherwise educated men, vacillate continually between stances that might be characterised as monstrous maleness and private brotherliness–in both ‘public’ and intimate settings–as one of the preconditions of social existence.
2014-10-01T00:00:00ZGriffin, Lisa MyfanwyThis thesis will suggest how Woolf scholarship’s rich exploration of Virginia Woolf’s representations of girls, women and femininities may be complemented by more systematic feminist study of constructs of masculinities, as they appear in her work. Elaborating the concept of the ‘private brother’, the figure of a form of maleness that the daughters of educated men ‘have reason to respect’, but that Three Guineas’ narrator stipulates is ‘sunk’ by men’s exposure to society and replaced by the ‘monstrous male’, my thesis will focus particularly on the representations of boys, men and masculinities in To the Lighthouse, Between the Acts and Woolf’s biography Roger Fry, though I will additionally use material from Woolf’s essays, diaries and letters, as well as from Mrs Dalloway, The Years and The Pargiters. The first section of my thesis will supplement feminist critiques of the education received by upper-middle-class English boys in Woolf’s texts by exploring her representations of young male (inter)subjectivities in the process of being ‘sunk.’ In the second section, I will complicate the narrative trajectories often indicated for these characters in Woolf criticism by proposing that Woolf understood this sinking process as always incomplete: I will argue that Woolf’s adult male characters, even her patriarchs, professors and otherwise educated men, vacillate continually between stances that might be characterised as monstrous maleness and private brotherliness–in both ‘public’ and intimate settings–as one of the preconditions of social existence.Ben Jonson and characterhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11906
This thesis discusses Ben Jonson’s innovative concept of character as an effect of interactions in dramatic, political and literary spheres. The Introduction observes how the early modern understanding of ‘character’ was built on classical rhetorical theory, and argues its relevance to Jonson’s rhetorical and performative representations of characters. Chapter 1 looks into the bridge between epigrams and character writing, and examines the rhetorical influence of the grammar-school exercises of Progymnasmata on Jonson’s representation of characters in his Epigrams. Chapter 2 examines character as legal ethos in Catiline, analysing the discourse of law that constitutes Cicero’s struggle to issue senatus consultum ultimum and examining the way Catiline represents character and mischief to address the problematic issues of power and authority in King James’ monarchical republic. Chapter 3 explores Jonson’s challenge in his integration of the emblematic characters of Opinion and Truth in Hymenaei, and argues that the underlining contemporary medico-legal discourses help the masque to accommodate conflicting characters. Chapter 4 discusses the problematic characterization of news and rumours in Volpone, The Staple of News and the later masques, and considers the way Jonsonian characters strive to find trustworthy and legible signs of others in their exchanges of information. In Conclusion, the thesis confirms the need to re-acknowledge Jonson’s writings in terms of character as rhetorical effect of these imagined interactions.
2015-03-01T00:00:00ZShimizu, AkihikoThis thesis discusses Ben Jonson’s innovative concept of character as an effect of interactions in dramatic, political and literary spheres. The Introduction observes how the early modern understanding of ‘character’ was built on classical rhetorical theory, and argues its relevance to Jonson’s rhetorical and performative representations of characters. Chapter 1 looks into the bridge between epigrams and character writing, and examines the rhetorical influence of the grammar-school exercises of Progymnasmata on Jonson’s representation of characters in his Epigrams. Chapter 2 examines character as legal ethos in Catiline, analysing the discourse of law that constitutes Cicero’s struggle to issue senatus consultum ultimum and examining the way Catiline represents character and mischief to address the problematic issues of power and authority in King James’ monarchical republic. Chapter 3 explores Jonson’s challenge in his integration of the emblematic characters of Opinion and Truth in Hymenaei, and argues that the underlining contemporary medico-legal discourses help the masque to accommodate conflicting characters. Chapter 4 discusses the problematic characterization of news and rumours in Volpone, The Staple of News and the later masques, and considers the way Jonsonian characters strive to find trustworthy and legible signs of others in their exchanges of information. In Conclusion, the thesis confirms the need to re-acknowledge Jonson’s writings in terms of character as rhetorical effect of these imagined interactions.Copious voices in early modern English writinghttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11904
This thesis takes as its object of study a certain strand of Early Modern English writing characterised by its cornucopian invention, immethodical structure, and creatively exuberant, often chaotic, means of expression. It takes as its point of departure the Erasmian theory of ‘copia’ (rhetorical abundance), expanding upon it freely in order to formulate new and independent notions of copious vernacular writing as it is practised in 16th- and 17th-century contexts. Throughout I argue for the continuity and pervasiveness of the pursuit of linguistic plenitude, in contrast to a prevailing belief that the outpouring of 'words' and 'things' started to dissipate in the transition from one century (16th) to the next (17th). The writers to be discussed are Thomas Nashe, Robert Burton, John Taylor the ‘Water-Poet’, and Sir Thomas Urquhart. Each of the genres in which these writers operate–prose-poetry, the essay, the pamphlet, and the universal language–emerge either toward the end of the 16th century or during the course of the 17th century, and so can be said to take copious writing in new and experimental directions not fully accounted for in the current scholarship. My contribution to the literature lies principally in its focus on the emergence of these literary forms in an Early Modern English context, with an emphasis on the role played by copiousness of expression in their stylistic development and how they in turn develop the practice of copia.
2015-03-01T00:00:00ZFarley, StuartThis thesis takes as its object of study a certain strand of Early Modern English writing characterised by its cornucopian invention, immethodical structure, and creatively exuberant, often chaotic, means of expression. It takes as its point of departure the Erasmian theory of ‘copia’ (rhetorical abundance), expanding upon it freely in order to formulate new and independent notions of copious vernacular writing as it is practised in 16th- and 17th-century contexts. Throughout I argue for the continuity and pervasiveness of the pursuit of linguistic plenitude, in contrast to a prevailing belief that the outpouring of 'words' and 'things' started to dissipate in the transition from one century (16th) to the next (17th). The writers to be discussed are Thomas Nashe, Robert Burton, John Taylor the ‘Water-Poet’, and Sir Thomas Urquhart. Each of the genres in which these writers operate–prose-poetry, the essay, the pamphlet, and the universal language–emerge either toward the end of the 16th century or during the course of the 17th century, and so can be said to take copious writing in new and experimental directions not fully accounted for in the current scholarship. My contribution to the literature lies principally in its focus on the emergence of these literary forms in an Early Modern English context, with an emphasis on the role played by copiousness of expression in their stylistic development and how they in turn develop the practice of copia.Accounting for taste : the poetics of food and flavour in Virginia Woolf’s novelshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11825
This thesis argues that tasting appears as an act of creative empathy and of knowledge acquisition in Virginia Woolf’s writing. First contextualising my discussion within Woolf’s own reading of the aesthetic and literary history of ‘taste’, I then use Cixous’ essay ‘Extreme Fidelity’ (renamed ‘The Author in Truth’) as a theoretical entryway to passages from The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, A Room of One’s Own, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, and Orlando which centralise the role of gustatory pleasure in creativity and epistemology. Cixous elaborates an oral, ‘poetic’ and feminine ontology rooted in a receptivity to sensual pleasure, a concept that assists my reading of Woolf in several aspects. I suggest that in Woolf, both literal and figurative experiences of taste contribute to physical and psychic repletion, consequently eliciting empathy with the other (Cixous’ term). This empathy which originates in the body constitutes an epistemological source distinct from intellectual or emotional intelligences, but one equally integral to the creative process. I assert that empathy features in Woolf as an extension or enlargement of the imagination through which a subject incorporates knowledge of alterity, but without consuming the other - as in the act of tasting. This ideation differs from notions of empathy as an analogical mapping or projection of self onto other. I discuss the ways in which a ‘gustatory epistemology’ informs Woolf’s approach to her craft, shapes the interrelationships of her characters, and materialises stylistically in her development of a ‘poetic’ prose language.
2015-11-01T00:00:00ZDe Santa, Jessica E.This thesis argues that tasting appears as an act of creative empathy and of knowledge acquisition in Virginia Woolf’s writing. First contextualising my discussion within Woolf’s own reading of the aesthetic and literary history of ‘taste’, I then use Cixous’ essay ‘Extreme Fidelity’ (renamed ‘The Author in Truth’) as a theoretical entryway to passages from The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, A Room of One’s Own, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, and Orlando which centralise the role of gustatory pleasure in creativity and epistemology. Cixous elaborates an oral, ‘poetic’ and feminine ontology rooted in a receptivity to sensual pleasure, a concept that assists my reading of Woolf in several aspects. I suggest that in Woolf, both literal and figurative experiences of taste contribute to physical and psychic repletion, consequently eliciting empathy with the other (Cixous’ term). This empathy which originates in the body constitutes an epistemological source distinct from intellectual or emotional intelligences, but one equally integral to the creative process. I assert that empathy features in Woolf as an extension or enlargement of the imagination through which a subject incorporates knowledge of alterity, but without consuming the other - as in the act of tasting. This ideation differs from notions of empathy as an analogical mapping or projection of self onto other. I discuss the ways in which a ‘gustatory epistemology’ informs Woolf’s approach to her craft, shapes the interrelationships of her characters, and materialises stylistically in her development of a ‘poetic’ prose language.'Looking down time's telescope at myself': reincarnation and global futures in David Mitchell's fictional worldshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11633
This essay explores the trope of reincarnation across the works of British author David Mitchell (b.1969) as an alternative approach to linear temporality, whose spiralling cyclicality warns of the dangers of seeing past actions as separate from future consequences, and whose focus on human interconnection demonstrates the importance of collective, intergenerational action in the face of ecological crises. Drawing on the Buddhist philosophy of samsara, or the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, this paper identifies links between the author’s interest in reincarnation and its secular manifestation in the treatment of time in his fictions. These works draw on reincarnation in their structures and characterisation as part of an ethical approach to the Anthropocene, using the temporal model of ‘reincarnation time’ as a narrative strategy to demonstrate that a greater understanding of generational interdependence is urgently needed in order to challenge the linear ‘end of history’ narrative of global capitalism.
2017-09-08T00:00:00ZHarris-Birtill, RoseThis essay explores the trope of reincarnation across the works of British author David Mitchell (b.1969) as an alternative approach to linear temporality, whose spiralling cyclicality warns of the dangers of seeing past actions as separate from future consequences, and whose focus on human interconnection demonstrates the importance of collective, intergenerational action in the face of ecological crises. Drawing on the Buddhist philosophy of samsara, or the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, this paper identifies links between the author’s interest in reincarnation and its secular manifestation in the treatment of time in his fictions. These works draw on reincarnation in their structures and characterisation as part of an ethical approach to the Anthropocene, using the temporal model of ‘reincarnation time’ as a narrative strategy to demonstrate that a greater understanding of generational interdependence is urgently needed in order to challenge the linear ‘end of history’ narrative of global capitalism.Manufacturing selves : the poetics of self-representation and identity in the poetry of three “factory-girls”, 1840-1882http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11578
This thesis is a transatlantic examination of self-representational strategies in factory women’s poetry from circa 1848-1882, highlighting in particular how the medium of the working-class periodical enabled these socially marginal poets to subjectively engage with and reconfigure dominant typologies of class and gender within nineteenth-century poetics. The first chapter explores how working-class women were depicted in middle-class social-reform literature and working-class men’s poetry. It argues that factory women were circumscribed into roles of social villainy or victimage in popular bourgeois reform texts by authors such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Caroline Norton, and were cast as idealized domestic figures in working-class men’s poetry in the mid-nineteenth century. The remaining three chapters examine the poetry of Manchester dye-worker Fanny Forrester, Scottish weaver Ellen Johnston, and Lowell mill-girl Lucy Larcom as case-studies of factory women’s poetics in mid-nineteenth century writing. Chapter Two discusses the life and work of Fanny Forrester in Ben Brierley’s Journal, and considers how Forrester’s invocation of the pastoral genre opens new opportunities for urban, factory women to engage with ideologies of domestic femininity within a destabilized urban cityscape. Chapter Three considers the work of Ellen Johnston, “The Factory Girl” whose numerous poems in The People’s Journal and the Penny Post cross genres, dialects, and themes. This chapter claims that Johnston’s poetry divides class and gender identity depending on her intended audience—a division exemplified, respectively, by her nationalistic poetry and her sentimental correspondence poetry. Chapter Four explores the work of Lucy Larcom, whose contributions to The Lowell Offering and her novel-poem An Idyl of Work harness the language and philosophy of Evangelical Christianity to validate women’s wage-labor as socially and religiously appropriate. Ultimately, this thesis contends that nineteenth-century factory women’s poetry from Britain and America embodies the tensions surrounding the “factory girl” identity, and offers unique aesthetic and representational strategies of negotiating women’s factory labor.
2017-07-18T00:00:00ZGarrard, SuzThis thesis is a transatlantic examination of self-representational strategies in factory women’s poetry from circa 1848-1882, highlighting in particular how the medium of the working-class periodical enabled these socially marginal poets to subjectively engage with and reconfigure dominant typologies of class and gender within nineteenth-century poetics. The first chapter explores how working-class women were depicted in middle-class social-reform literature and working-class men’s poetry. It argues that factory women were circumscribed into roles of social villainy or victimage in popular bourgeois reform texts by authors such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Caroline Norton, and were cast as idealized domestic figures in working-class men’s poetry in the mid-nineteenth century. The remaining three chapters examine the poetry of Manchester dye-worker Fanny Forrester, Scottish weaver Ellen Johnston, and Lowell mill-girl Lucy Larcom as case-studies of factory women’s poetics in mid-nineteenth century writing. Chapter Two discusses the life and work of Fanny Forrester in Ben Brierley’s Journal, and considers how Forrester’s invocation of the pastoral genre opens new opportunities for urban, factory women to engage with ideologies of domestic femininity within a destabilized urban cityscape. Chapter Three considers the work of Ellen Johnston, “The Factory Girl” whose numerous poems in The People’s Journal and the Penny Post cross genres, dialects, and themes. This chapter claims that Johnston’s poetry divides class and gender identity depending on her intended audience—a division exemplified, respectively, by her nationalistic poetry and her sentimental correspondence poetry. Chapter Four explores the work of Lucy Larcom, whose contributions to The Lowell Offering and her novel-poem An Idyl of Work harness the language and philosophy of Evangelical Christianity to validate women’s wage-labor as socially and religiously appropriate. Ultimately, this thesis contends that nineteenth-century factory women’s poetry from Britain and America embodies the tensions surrounding the “factory girl” identity, and offers unique aesthetic and representational strategies of negotiating women’s factory labor.What John Shirley said about Adam : authorship and attribution in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.20http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11482
The scribe John Shirley copied many short Middle English poems, including several by Geoffrey Chaucer, and is often either the earliest or the only copyist to provide authorship ascriptions. Cambridge Trinity College MS R.3.20 uniquely preserves the single stanza known as 'Adam Scriveyn'. Since the identification of Adam Pinkhurst as the scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, these seven lines of verse, and Shirley's claim that they are addressed to Chaucer's 'own scribe' have received renewed critical attention, and Shirley's reliability has again been questioned. This essay reassesses Shirley's Chaucerian ascriptions, paying close attention to the Trinity manuscript and its later reception.
2017-07-26T00:00:00ZConnolly, MargaretThe scribe John Shirley copied many short Middle English poems, including several by Geoffrey Chaucer, and is often either the earliest or the only copyist to provide authorship ascriptions. Cambridge Trinity College MS R.3.20 uniquely preserves the single stanza known as 'Adam Scriveyn'. Since the identification of Adam Pinkhurst as the scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, these seven lines of verse, and Shirley's claim that they are addressed to Chaucer's 'own scribe' have received renewed critical attention, and Shirley's reliability has again been questioned. This essay reassesses Shirley's Chaucerian ascriptions, paying close attention to the Trinity manuscript and its later reception.The continuous flight from wonder : an ecocritical analysis of the tensions between natural history and modern science in Andrea Barrett's fiction ; How muskrat made the world and other storieshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11388
This thesis comprises a critical component, The Continuous Flight From
Wonder: An Ecocritical Analysis of Tensions Between Natural History and Modern
Science in Andrea Barrett’s Fiction, and a creative component, How Muskrat Made
the World and Other Stories. These two pieces are connected by their common theme
of characters defining their place in the world through their relationship with nature.
More specifically, both seek to explore how knowledge of and interactions with the
nonhuman natural world play a role in the characters’ view of self.
The critical component looks at the way in which the tension between natural
history and modern science in Barrett’s work affects the characters’ troubled
relationship with nature as they conceive it. The body of this piece is divided into four
chapters, each corresponding to a recurring character archetype: The Naturalist, The
Explorer, The Immigrant, and The Female Scientist. By analyzing the ways in which
the restriction of these archetypes affect the characters’ relationship with the natural
world, I will show that Barrett’s work provides a wealth of material for ecocritical
analysis and should be considered alongside other works of ecocritical fiction.
The creative component consists of seven short stories linked by the presence
of human/animal interactions in each one and loosely by place. The characters in
these eight stories try to make sense of the world through their relationship with
animals. Sometimes this knowledge of animals comes through myth, science, and,
most frequently, through domestic familiarity. The mirror that animal interactions
holds up to the human characters often illuminates flaws and strengths, but inevitably
defines what it is that makes them human by highlighting their affinity or aversion to
the nonhuman natural world.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZMcGuigan, KeriThis thesis comprises a critical component, The Continuous Flight From
Wonder: An Ecocritical Analysis of Tensions Between Natural History and Modern
Science in Andrea Barrett’s Fiction, and a creative component, How Muskrat Made
the World and Other Stories. These two pieces are connected by their common theme
of characters defining their place in the world through their relationship with nature.
More specifically, both seek to explore how knowledge of and interactions with the
nonhuman natural world play a role in the characters’ view of self.
The critical component looks at the way in which the tension between natural
history and modern science in Barrett’s work affects the characters’ troubled
relationship with nature as they conceive it. The body of this piece is divided into four
chapters, each corresponding to a recurring character archetype: The Naturalist, The
Explorer, The Immigrant, and The Female Scientist. By analyzing the ways in which
the restriction of these archetypes affect the characters’ relationship with the natural
world, I will show that Barrett’s work provides a wealth of material for ecocritical
analysis and should be considered alongside other works of ecocritical fiction.
The creative component consists of seven short stories linked by the presence
of human/animal interactions in each one and loosely by place. The characters in
these eight stories try to make sense of the world through their relationship with
animals. Sometimes this knowledge of animals comes through myth, science, and,
most frequently, through domestic familiarity. The mirror that animal interactions
holds up to the human characters often illuminates flaws and strengths, but inevitably
defines what it is that makes them human by highlighting their affinity or aversion to
the nonhuman natural world.A second violation : rape myths in contemporary, popular British and American writing; and, The Alden casehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11383
This thesis and related work of fiction explores the representation of rape in contemporary British and American writing, with a particular focus on the use of rape myths in narratives about sexual violence. It evaluates how this crime is portrayed in popular literature through the analysis of three works of fiction by two bestselling authors: Joyce Carol Oates and Jodi Picoult. It also examines newspaper reporting through the analysis of three
news events – one in the U.K. and two in the U.S. – that received a significant amount of coverage from an assortment of newspapers. Literature and newspaper reporting contribute to public views of rape as well as cultural attitudes towards women. People may reference rape narratives as they form opinions about sexual violence, therefore making it crucial that these acts are portrayed accurately. This thesis will examine the vehicles that frame the discussion of sexual assault. It will focus on the way each author depicts the victim(s) and perpetrator(s) and assess how the type of rape – whether date, gang, or stranger rape – affects its representation. It will also reveal if
contemporary British and American writing has tried to disprove misperceptions and accurately depict sexual violence or if it continues to propagate myths.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZO'Hara, Shannon E.This thesis and related work of fiction explores the representation of rape in contemporary British and American writing, with a particular focus on the use of rape myths in narratives about sexual violence. It evaluates how this crime is portrayed in popular literature through the analysis of three works of fiction by two bestselling authors: Joyce Carol Oates and Jodi Picoult. It also examines newspaper reporting through the analysis of three
news events – one in the U.K. and two in the U.S. – that received a significant amount of coverage from an assortment of newspapers. Literature and newspaper reporting contribute to public views of rape as well as cultural attitudes towards women. People may reference rape narratives as they form opinions about sexual violence, therefore making it crucial that these acts are portrayed accurately. This thesis will examine the vehicles that frame the discussion of sexual assault. It will focus on the way each author depicts the victim(s) and perpetrator(s) and assess how the type of rape – whether date, gang, or stranger rape – affects its representation. It will also reveal if
contemporary British and American writing has tried to disprove misperceptions and accurately depict sexual violence or if it continues to propagate myths.'On mentioning the unmentionable' : feminism, little magazines, and the case of Rebecca Westhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11379
Recent projects conducted by The Universities of De Montfort, Nottingham, and
Sussex, U.K. and Brown University in Providence, U.S.A., have highlighted the
wealth of under-researched material contained in early twentieth-century little
magazines. These niche periodicals, in a cultural materialist sense, provide a useful
entry point for the research, analysis, and recreation of the zeitgeist of what can be
loosely termed ‘the Modernist movement.’ One area in which these magazines are
particularly useful is in uncovering the genesis of modern or contemporary feminist
thought. In some respects it can be argued that despite their small circulation figures
and limited readership, magazines such as The Freewoman, The New Freewoman, and
BLAST reveal a groundbreaking shift in, and towards the ‘Woman Question’. Women
editors and writers such as Dora Marsden and Rebecca West, embraced new
continental philosophies and aesthetics, and used them to deconstruct the concept of
‘Woman.’ Grasping the idea of individualism, Marsden challenged the essentialist
language that controlled women through oppressive gender stereotypes.
This thesis will map out the feminist topography that influenced and
encouraged Dora Marsden in her quest for a more wholesale, psychological, female
emancipation, as opposed to continuing the singular pursuit of the franchise. Through
The Freewoman journals Marsden, and her protégée West, began to articulate new
modes of feminism that challenged the grand narratives of Edwardian society and
exposed the cultural and linguistic fault lines that created ‘woman’ as ‘the helpmeet’;
a subordinate and commodified adjunct to man. Far from being outmoded or
forgotten, Marsden’s ideas – particularly those concerned with language – have
filtered their way into modern consciousness through feminist writers such as West,
and at times prove prescient of the groundbreaking work of Simone de Beauvoir,
Monique Wittig, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristeva. Complementing the stimulating
research of Lucy Bland, Peter Brooker, Cary Franklin, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar,
Gillian Hanscombe, Sheila Jeffreys, Jane E. Marek, Maroula Joannou, Janet Lyons,
Jean-Michele Rabaté, Robert Scholes, Andrew Thacker, Virginia L. Smyers, and
Clifford Wulfman, this thesis will examine how Freewoman individualism helped
shape the early fiction of Rebecca West and influenced the masculinist ethos of its
contemporary little magazine, BLAST.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZToms, GailRecent projects conducted by The Universities of De Montfort, Nottingham, and
Sussex, U.K. and Brown University in Providence, U.S.A., have highlighted the
wealth of under-researched material contained in early twentieth-century little
magazines. These niche periodicals, in a cultural materialist sense, provide a useful
entry point for the research, analysis, and recreation of the zeitgeist of what can be
loosely termed ‘the Modernist movement.’ One area in which these magazines are
particularly useful is in uncovering the genesis of modern or contemporary feminist
thought. In some respects it can be argued that despite their small circulation figures
and limited readership, magazines such as The Freewoman, The New Freewoman, and
BLAST reveal a groundbreaking shift in, and towards the ‘Woman Question’. Women
editors and writers such as Dora Marsden and Rebecca West, embraced new
continental philosophies and aesthetics, and used them to deconstruct the concept of
‘Woman.’ Grasping the idea of individualism, Marsden challenged the essentialist
language that controlled women through oppressive gender stereotypes.
This thesis will map out the feminist topography that influenced and
encouraged Dora Marsden in her quest for a more wholesale, psychological, female
emancipation, as opposed to continuing the singular pursuit of the franchise. Through
The Freewoman journals Marsden, and her protégée West, began to articulate new
modes of feminism that challenged the grand narratives of Edwardian society and
exposed the cultural and linguistic fault lines that created ‘woman’ as ‘the helpmeet’;
a subordinate and commodified adjunct to man. Far from being outmoded or
forgotten, Marsden’s ideas – particularly those concerned with language – have
filtered their way into modern consciousness through feminist writers such as West,
and at times prove prescient of the groundbreaking work of Simone de Beauvoir,
Monique Wittig, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristeva. Complementing the stimulating
research of Lucy Bland, Peter Brooker, Cary Franklin, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar,
Gillian Hanscombe, Sheila Jeffreys, Jane E. Marek, Maroula Joannou, Janet Lyons,
Jean-Michele Rabaté, Robert Scholes, Andrew Thacker, Virginia L. Smyers, and
Clifford Wulfman, this thesis will examine how Freewoman individualism helped
shape the early fiction of Rebecca West and influenced the masculinist ethos of its
contemporary little magazine, BLAST.Tortured words : the first Soviet Writers Congress, Moscow 1934 : socialist realism and Soviet reality in Stalin's Russia 1934-1939http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11371
Both the academic and the fiction element of the thesis concerns events in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s. The first element informs the second. The academic portion is
based on the first Soviet Writers Congress of 1934, the only such gathering allowed by Stalin in his lifetime and an event following which many of its delegates were murdered. Primary research
sources include the stenographic verbatim record of the Congress itself and an addendum consisting of biographical material published by the Writers Union of the USSR in 1990 as Russian Communism tottered towards its end. This part of the thesis examines aspects of Soviet reality against the background of the Purges, and includes consideration of the writer’s world, the
significance of the Red Army to literary life, the position of foreigners and the doctrine of Socialist Realism, officially sanctified at the Congress. Other sources include memoir, histories of the period and material from the Thirties Soviet press.
The fiction element comprises an excerpt from a novel, The Eastern Bow, which takes its title from Auden’s poem A Summer Night. It is a story of espionage set in Moscow, Paris and London from 1937 to 1939. The plot involves the writing of a book in Russia by an unknown writer of genius who tells the truth about Stalin, the Purges and what the Revolution has become –a perversion of its earlier ideals. The secret police, the NKVD, hunt for the book, its author and all connected with it.
This sub-plot combines with another centred in London and Paris in which a Soviet spy within MI6 is also being sought by elements within British intelligence. The two strands combine in France at the climax of the novel.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZBoyle, Robert AlexanderBoth the academic and the fiction element of the thesis concerns events in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s. The first element informs the second. The academic portion is
based on the first Soviet Writers Congress of 1934, the only such gathering allowed by Stalin in his lifetime and an event following which many of its delegates were murdered. Primary research
sources include the stenographic verbatim record of the Congress itself and an addendum consisting of biographical material published by the Writers Union of the USSR in 1990 as Russian Communism tottered towards its end. This part of the thesis examines aspects of Soviet reality against the background of the Purges, and includes consideration of the writer’s world, the
significance of the Red Army to literary life, the position of foreigners and the doctrine of Socialist Realism, officially sanctified at the Congress. Other sources include memoir, histories of the period and material from the Thirties Soviet press.
The fiction element comprises an excerpt from a novel, The Eastern Bow, which takes its title from Auden’s poem A Summer Night. It is a story of espionage set in Moscow, Paris and London from 1937 to 1939. The plot involves the writing of a book in Russia by an unknown writer of genius who tells the truth about Stalin, the Purges and what the Revolution has become –a perversion of its earlier ideals. The secret police, the NKVD, hunt for the book, its author and all connected with it.
This sub-plot combines with another centred in London and Paris in which a Soviet spy within MI6 is also being sought by elements within British intelligence. The two strands combine in France at the climax of the novel.'Mr. Keats'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11140
Full exploration of the implications of the surgical episode involving 'Mr Keats, one of the Surgeons belonging to Guy's Hospital' in March-April 1816.
2015-07-03T00:00:00ZRoe, Nicholas HughFull exploration of the implications of the surgical episode involving 'Mr Keats, one of the Surgeons belonging to Guy's Hospital' in March-April 1816.Popular fiction in France and England, 1860-1875 : convention, irony and ambivalence in the novels of Paul Féval and Wilkie Collinshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11112
This thesis is a comparative study of two popular nineteenth-century writers, Paul Feval and Wilkie Collins, and by extension, of their respective traditions, the Roman-Feuilleton and the Sensation novel. At the same time, the thesis seeks to provide new insight into the nature and function of
popular fiction as a genre.
This study argues that, contrary to common assumptions, popular fiction is a complex and dialogic form. As a comparative project, this thesis underscores similarities and differences between the two writers.
Chapter I looks at the narrative structures of the novels. It demonstrates that the use of archetypal story-patterns and characters leaves room for 'both thoughtful and ironically playful narrative experiments, resulting in a surprising degree of self-reflexivity.
Chapter Il emphasises the dialogic nature of the texts by examining the ways they evoke and rework different genres and registers. It argues that the mingling of tones and moods serves both to stimulate readers' pleasure and to convey criticism of contemporary society. Making use of Mikhaïl
Bakhtin's theories on popular culture, this section highlights the carnivalesque nature of the texts.
Chapter III addresses in detail the formal influence of the theatre on the two sets of texts and investigates the use of theatrical metaphors in the novels as a way to explore the workings of society.
Chapter IV sets out to redress common assumptions about the conservatism of Féval's narratives and the radical nature of Collins' novels by highlighting the existence of two contrary discourses, one manichean and conservative, the other rebellious and immoral.
Chapter V makes use of René Girard's theory of the scapegoat. By showing how the two discourses articulate around a scapegoat figure, it draws a parallel between the mechanisms of popular fiction and social mechanisms. Finally, this section argues that both Féval and Collins were aware of the ideological charge of the form they were using and of its limitations.
2000-01-01T00:00:00ZPicq, ElisabethThis thesis is a comparative study of two popular nineteenth-century writers, Paul Feval and Wilkie Collins, and by extension, of their respective traditions, the Roman-Feuilleton and the Sensation novel. At the same time, the thesis seeks to provide new insight into the nature and function of
popular fiction as a genre.
This study argues that, contrary to common assumptions, popular fiction is a complex and dialogic form. As a comparative project, this thesis underscores similarities and differences between the two writers.
Chapter I looks at the narrative structures of the novels. It demonstrates that the use of archetypal story-patterns and characters leaves room for 'both thoughtful and ironically playful narrative experiments, resulting in a surprising degree of self-reflexivity.
Chapter Il emphasises the dialogic nature of the texts by examining the ways they evoke and rework different genres and registers. It argues that the mingling of tones and moods serves both to stimulate readers' pleasure and to convey criticism of contemporary society. Making use of Mikhaïl
Bakhtin's theories on popular culture, this section highlights the carnivalesque nature of the texts.
Chapter III addresses in detail the formal influence of the theatre on the two sets of texts and investigates the use of theatrical metaphors in the novels as a way to explore the workings of society.
Chapter IV sets out to redress common assumptions about the conservatism of Féval's narratives and the radical nature of Collins' novels by highlighting the existence of two contrary discourses, one manichean and conservative, the other rebellious and immoral.
Chapter V makes use of René Girard's theory of the scapegoat. By showing how the two discourses articulate around a scapegoat figure, it draws a parallel between the mechanisms of popular fiction and social mechanisms. Finally, this section argues that both Féval and Collins were aware of the ideological charge of the form they were using and of its limitations.Latin into Scots : the principles and practice of Gavin Douglas in his translation of the 'Aeneid' of Virgilhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11082
The Introduction takes the form of an account of Douglas's aims and methods in translation as stated by himself. One of the predominant features of the Eneados is the amount of expansion, so this subject is introduced in the first chapter, necessarily briefly, because it is a topic which recurs in association with other features throughout the poem and has to be returned to more than once.
Another predominant feature is the large number of inaccuracies in Douglas's translation. As surprisingly little attention has been paid to this matter, several chapters have been
devoted to the various forms which it takes. The aim of this first part of the thesis is to provide material to disprove the claim that Douglas was an accurate translator, a claim still frequently made.
In order that the negative aspects of Douglas's work should not monopolise the study, a number of parallel passages are discussed, where Douglas's version is set out along with that of one of five other poets, spanning the period from the 16th century to the present day, the aim being to draw attention to Douglas's positive poetic skills.
Three appendices are added, the last of which takes the form of a collation of the 1501 (Paris) edition of Virgil's Aeneid, which Douglas principally used, with the Oxford Classical Text (1969) This has been included to disprove another statement, to the effect that his apparent inaccuracies disappear when related to the 1501 text. The variations between the two texts, although numerous, are mainly insignificant, and only a very few of Douglas's inaccuracies are to be explained in this way.
1992-01-01T00:00:00ZRobb, Ian S.The Introduction takes the form of an account of Douglas's aims and methods in translation as stated by himself. One of the predominant features of the Eneados is the amount of expansion, so this subject is introduced in the first chapter, necessarily briefly, because it is a topic which recurs in association with other features throughout the poem and has to be returned to more than once.
Another predominant feature is the large number of inaccuracies in Douglas's translation. As surprisingly little attention has been paid to this matter, several chapters have been
devoted to the various forms which it takes. The aim of this first part of the thesis is to provide material to disprove the claim that Douglas was an accurate translator, a claim still frequently made.
In order that the negative aspects of Douglas's work should not monopolise the study, a number of parallel passages are discussed, where Douglas's version is set out along with that of one of five other poets, spanning the period from the 16th century to the present day, the aim being to draw attention to Douglas's positive poetic skills.
Three appendices are added, the last of which takes the form of a collation of the 1501 (Paris) edition of Virgil's Aeneid, which Douglas principally used, with the Oxford Classical Text (1969) This has been included to disprove another statement, to the effect that his apparent inaccuracies disappear when related to the 1501 text. The variations between the two texts, although numerous, are mainly insignificant, and only a very few of Douglas's inaccuracies are to be explained in this way.English Renaissance paradox : intellectual contexts and traditions with particular reference to John Donne's ̀Paradoxes' and ̀Biathanatos'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11046
This study examines the intellectual background of the paradoxes of John Donne. In the first chapter, the classical foundations of the concept of paradox are detailed.
These foundations reflect basic philosophical differences which are manifest in a writer's approach to the defence of a paradox or uncommon opinion. The first
chapter also discusses the derivation of classical concepts of paradox by sixteenth century writers in an effort to correlate these concepts with the respective philosophical positions with which Donne would have been familiar. The second chapter focuses on the dialectical procedure of the thesis. Aristotle explicitly associated the thesis with paradox, and he delineated its fundamental role in the investigation of contested speculative questions. Cicero adapted it to his rhetorical theory but continued to observe its essentially dialectical character. In the sixteenth century, writers on both rhetoric and logic drew heavily on the works of Aristotle
and Cicero for their own formulations of the thesis. These formulations reflect precisely the relationship which Aristotle and Cicero observed between the paradox and the thesis. The third chapter begins by examining the challenge posed by Peter Ramus to the Aristotelian dialectic upon which the scholastic curricula of European universities was based. Donne's English contemporaries, Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe, disagreed on the value of Ramus' innovations, and their comments on them in their quarrel reveal an awareness of the profound epistemological ramifications of Ramus' denial of the sceptical use of the thesis which Aristotle had observed in his Topics. The fourth chapter details those epistemological theories which competed with Ramus' neoaristotelianism. The majority of these theories are neoplatonic; they exhibit the characteristic features of Platonic Idealism which Aristotle had rejected in his Metaphysics, and which would be later rejected by Aquinas. Donne was familiar with these neoplatonic alternatives and was not wholly unreceptive to them. However, he explicitly denies the value of neoplatonic theories of mind for the practical affairs of Christian life, and maintains that the doubt implicit in matters to which revelation and reason have not delivered absolute
precepts insures the viability of paradoxical opinions. The fifth chapter compares Donne's Aristotelian notion of paradox with other paradoxes of the sixteenth century. Through this comparison, the scholastic foundation of Donne's dialectical argumentation is exposed. Once exposed, his characteristic tentativeness with regard to the doctrinal differences of his day is understood to be a consequence of his Aristotelian and Thomist regard for the difficulty with which reason attains knowledge. The sixth chapter examines Donne's paradox and thesis, Biathanatos, in light of the Thomist principles which it employs in its exposition of the problem of suicide. Throughout Biathanatos Donne criticizes the value of Augustine's moral doctrine in practical life, and accepts an epistemological doctrine which accommodates doubt and error in the manner detailed by Aquinas and denied by Augustine. It is with this doubt and error in mind that Donne's paradox proceeds towards its conclusion's request for charitable interpretation, an interpretation which is informed specifically by Aquinas' doctrine of charity.
2000-01-01T00:00:00ZPagano, RichardThis study examines the intellectual background of the paradoxes of John Donne. In the first chapter, the classical foundations of the concept of paradox are detailed.
These foundations reflect basic philosophical differences which are manifest in a writer's approach to the defence of a paradox or uncommon opinion. The first
chapter also discusses the derivation of classical concepts of paradox by sixteenth century writers in an effort to correlate these concepts with the respective philosophical positions with which Donne would have been familiar. The second chapter focuses on the dialectical procedure of the thesis. Aristotle explicitly associated the thesis with paradox, and he delineated its fundamental role in the investigation of contested speculative questions. Cicero adapted it to his rhetorical theory but continued to observe its essentially dialectical character. In the sixteenth century, writers on both rhetoric and logic drew heavily on the works of Aristotle
and Cicero for their own formulations of the thesis. These formulations reflect precisely the relationship which Aristotle and Cicero observed between the paradox and the thesis. The third chapter begins by examining the challenge posed by Peter Ramus to the Aristotelian dialectic upon which the scholastic curricula of European universities was based. Donne's English contemporaries, Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe, disagreed on the value of Ramus' innovations, and their comments on them in their quarrel reveal an awareness of the profound epistemological ramifications of Ramus' denial of the sceptical use of the thesis which Aristotle had observed in his Topics. The fourth chapter details those epistemological theories which competed with Ramus' neoaristotelianism. The majority of these theories are neoplatonic; they exhibit the characteristic features of Platonic Idealism which Aristotle had rejected in his Metaphysics, and which would be later rejected by Aquinas. Donne was familiar with these neoplatonic alternatives and was not wholly unreceptive to them. However, he explicitly denies the value of neoplatonic theories of mind for the practical affairs of Christian life, and maintains that the doubt implicit in matters to which revelation and reason have not delivered absolute
precepts insures the viability of paradoxical opinions. The fifth chapter compares Donne's Aristotelian notion of paradox with other paradoxes of the sixteenth century. Through this comparison, the scholastic foundation of Donne's dialectical argumentation is exposed. Once exposed, his characteristic tentativeness with regard to the doctrinal differences of his day is understood to be a consequence of his Aristotelian and Thomist regard for the difficulty with which reason attains knowledge. The sixth chapter examines Donne's paradox and thesis, Biathanatos, in light of the Thomist principles which it employs in its exposition of the problem of suicide. Throughout Biathanatos Donne criticizes the value of Augustine's moral doctrine in practical life, and accepts an epistemological doctrine which accommodates doubt and error in the manner detailed by Aquinas and denied by Augustine. It is with this doubt and error in mind that Donne's paradox proceeds towards its conclusion's request for charitable interpretation, an interpretation which is informed specifically by Aquinas' doctrine of charity.The poetry of an artificial man : a study of the Latin and English verse of Robert Southwellhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/11045
The subject of the thesis is the verse of Robert Southwell, both in Latin and English. It may be divided broadly into three sections corresponding to three main areas of interest. First, there
is a discussion of the character of Counter-Reformation, or to be more precise, of Jesuit Poetics, which is largely based on the 'De poesi…' of Antonio Possevino, a leading Jesuit scholar and educationalist. There follows an account of the Latin verse which Southwell wrote abroad before his return to England in 1586. The third and most substantial part of the thesis is an account of the English poetry which is given in four chapters. First, following a discussion of the textual situation, Southwell's shorter poems are discussed as a coherent and intelligible sequence. Next, there is an account of the distinctive character of Southwell's poetry as revealed in its recurrent themes and images. Here the continuity between the Latin and English verse is examined. Next there is an account of Southwell's masterpiece, 'Saint Peters Complaint', which is seen as the fulfilment of Southwell's poetic career, and as a microcosm of his poetic work, drawing together in a compact unity elements scattered and divided amongst the rest of his work. Finally, an attempt is made to identify Southwell's best poetry, and to give detailed readings of his best poems, with the intention that Southwell may be better represented in anthologies and literary histories. A brief conclusion suggests that artificiality, which in contrast with previous readings is seen as a central element of Southwell's poetry, is relevant to
understanding his life also.
1985-01-01T00:00:00ZOxley, Brian WilliamThe subject of the thesis is the verse of Robert Southwell, both in Latin and English. It may be divided broadly into three sections corresponding to three main areas of interest. First, there
is a discussion of the character of Counter-Reformation, or to be more precise, of Jesuit Poetics, which is largely based on the 'De poesi…' of Antonio Possevino, a leading Jesuit scholar and educationalist. There follows an account of the Latin verse which Southwell wrote abroad before his return to England in 1586. The third and most substantial part of the thesis is an account of the English poetry which is given in four chapters. First, following a discussion of the textual situation, Southwell's shorter poems are discussed as a coherent and intelligible sequence. Next, there is an account of the distinctive character of Southwell's poetry as revealed in its recurrent themes and images. Here the continuity between the Latin and English verse is examined. Next there is an account of Southwell's masterpiece, 'Saint Peters Complaint', which is seen as the fulfilment of Southwell's poetic career, and as a microcosm of his poetic work, drawing together in a compact unity elements scattered and divided amongst the rest of his work. Finally, an attempt is made to identify Southwell's best poetry, and to give detailed readings of his best poems, with the intention that Southwell may be better represented in anthologies and literary histories. A brief conclusion suggests that artificiality, which in contrast with previous readings is seen as a central element of Southwell's poetry, is relevant to
understanding his life also.Title redactedhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/10821
2017-06-20T00:00:00ZLaitila, JohannaPostcolonial singularity and a world literature yet-to-comehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/10672
This article considers the challenge posed by Gayatri Spivak to rethink world literature along postcolonial lines as an ethical encounter with alterity. Read in this way, Spivak participates in a reframing of world literature that retains the critical gains made by postcolonial theory and suggests that the work of world literary analysis ought not necessarily be de/prescriptive (classifying and ordering) but might involve a contestation of the power relations that structure the world. In developing this argument, I draw on four further perspectives: Pascale Casanova's problematic assertion of literary singularity in The World Republic of Letters; Fredric Jameson's theorization of “third world literature” as counterpoint to Casanova's limiting understanding of national literature; Gilles Deleuze, who offers a way to rethink world literature in a process of becoming; and Édouard Glissant, whose work proposes a “relational” vision of difference that, like that of Spivak, demands an ethical, imaginative response to literature as literature.
2015-10-27T00:00:00ZBurns, Lorna MargaretThis article considers the challenge posed by Gayatri Spivak to rethink world literature along postcolonial lines as an ethical encounter with alterity. Read in this way, Spivak participates in a reframing of world literature that retains the critical gains made by postcolonial theory and suggests that the work of world literary analysis ought not necessarily be de/prescriptive (classifying and ordering) but might involve a contestation of the power relations that structure the world. In developing this argument, I draw on four further perspectives: Pascale Casanova's problematic assertion of literary singularity in The World Republic of Letters; Fredric Jameson's theorization of “third world literature” as counterpoint to Casanova's limiting understanding of national literature; Gilles Deleuze, who offers a way to rethink world literature in a process of becoming; and Édouard Glissant, whose work proposes a “relational” vision of difference that, like that of Spivak, demands an ethical, imaginative response to literature as literature.David Mitchell : Slade Househttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/10331
2016-08-01T00:00:00ZHarris-Birtill, RoseThe duality of God, humanity and religion in William Golding's 'Darkness Visible' and John Steinbeck's 'East of Eden'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9863
This thesis is an examination of the duality of God, humanity, and
religion as represented in William Golding's Darkness Visible and John
Steinbeck's East of Eden. Particular attention is paid to the tendency of these
two authors to explicate their themes through the juxtaposition, or doubling,
of characters and ideas. In the first chapter, God is discussed in conjunction
with the conventional separation of Old and New Testament identities, as
well as the instances in these novels where the authors' and their characters'
interpretations of the divine nature are differentiated. In the second chapter,
the characters themselves, representing a fictional humanity, are discussed in
relation to their dependence on their doubles for a complete evaluation. In
many instances, there are single personalities with contradicting traits and
behaviours, denoting a further duality within the individual. In the third
chapter, religion, as the worship and attempted imitation of the deity, is given
its own "identity" within these two rewritings of Biblical stories through the
conjunction of different methods of praise and the often contradictory
religious ethics of characters.
1997-01-01T00:00:00ZWarren, Ellen FlournoyThis thesis is an examination of the duality of God, humanity, and
religion as represented in William Golding's Darkness Visible and John
Steinbeck's East of Eden. Particular attention is paid to the tendency of these
two authors to explicate their themes through the juxtaposition, or doubling,
of characters and ideas. In the first chapter, God is discussed in conjunction
with the conventional separation of Old and New Testament identities, as
well as the instances in these novels where the authors' and their characters'
interpretations of the divine nature are differentiated. In the second chapter,
the characters themselves, representing a fictional humanity, are discussed in
relation to their dependence on their doubles for a complete evaluation. In
many instances, there are single personalities with contradicting traits and
behaviours, denoting a further duality within the individual. In the third
chapter, religion, as the worship and attempted imitation of the deity, is given
its own "identity" within these two rewritings of Biblical stories through the
conjunction of different methods of praise and the often contradictory
religious ethics of characters.Metaphoric landscape in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwoodhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9826
The purpose of the following study is to demonstrate
the metaphoric landscape as a tool to delineate boundaries in
their novels. The thesis will explore the progression of
this technique from Woolf to Atwood to discover whether
these two novels can be read in similar ways,
"suggesting" as Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik remark, "a
continuing tradition of alternative quest and vision in
women's writing."
The first part of the thesis introduces metaphoric
landscape and illustrates the various ways that Woolf and
Atwood use the technique. biographical sketch of Woolf, and it closely examines
five of the author's novels as well as one of her essays.
Part III introduces Atwood to the study with a brief
historical background and a comparison with Woolf; it
also explores the technique as it appears in seven of
Atwood's novels. The dissertation concludes with
observations that connect Parts II and III, showing the
way that Woolf and Atwood delineate existing boundaries
and forge new frontiers through their use of metaphoric
landscape.
1994-01-01T00:00:00ZLedyard, Margaret DabneyThe purpose of the following study is to demonstrate
the metaphoric landscape as a tool to delineate boundaries in
their novels. The thesis will explore the progression of
this technique from Woolf to Atwood to discover whether
these two novels can be read in similar ways,
"suggesting" as Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik remark, "a
continuing tradition of alternative quest and vision in
women's writing."
The first part of the thesis introduces metaphoric
landscape and illustrates the various ways that Woolf and
Atwood use the technique. biographical sketch of Woolf, and it closely examines
five of the author's novels as well as one of her essays.
Part III introduces Atwood to the study with a brief
historical background and a comparison with Woolf; it
also explores the technique as it appears in seven of
Atwood's novels. The dissertation concludes with
observations that connect Parts II and III, showing the
way that Woolf and Atwood delineate existing boundaries
and forge new frontiers through their use of metaphoric
landscape.Liminality as identity in four novels by Ben Okri and Tahar ben Jellounhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9825
This thesis compares two novels each by Nigerian writer Ben Okri and Moroccan
writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. By examining apparently transformative moments in the lives of each
protagonist, Azaro and Zahra, its principal aim is to show how liminality characterises their
identities, and is a source of personal and potentially political liberation, mirrored in the
narrative techniques.
The Introduction demonstrates the centrality of identity to these novels and the
domain of postcolonial studies and defines the key concepts in relevant literary, theoretical and
political contexts: identity, hybridity, liminality, magical realism and the
postcolonial/postmodern debate.
Chapter I establishes Azaro and Zahra as liminal beings from birth, whose childhood
rituals are incomplete and who continually subvert parental and social expectation. This
examination of liminality may be extended by reading the characters as emblems of their
respective nations-in-waiting.
Chapter II focuses on the tension between biology and culture within Zahra's gendered
identity and demonstrates empowerment in her choice to remain liminal in a 'potential space'.
Azaro's shifting sexual awareness is examined as a manifestation of his liminality. The
allegorical reading of Zahra's life is continued, and a connection made between sexual and
political corruption in the English texts.
Chapter III centres on the fluidity of Azaro's boundaries and perception. Like Zahra's,
his liminality is chosen, as he decides to live in a potential space between human and spirit.
Zahra, too, has a special relationship with the spirit world; she and Azaro are shown to have
revelatory visions of political significance.
The Conclusion brings together the analysis of Azaro's and Zahra's identities before
extending the liminal states of the protagonists to those of reader and artist. It concludes that
these texts offer new opportunities for the understanding of postcolonial texts and moving
beyond the duality of the postcolonial/postmodern debate.
2001-01-01T00:00:00ZTaylor, LaurelThis thesis compares two novels each by Nigerian writer Ben Okri and Moroccan
writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. By examining apparently transformative moments in the lives of each
protagonist, Azaro and Zahra, its principal aim is to show how liminality characterises their
identities, and is a source of personal and potentially political liberation, mirrored in the
narrative techniques.
The Introduction demonstrates the centrality of identity to these novels and the
domain of postcolonial studies and defines the key concepts in relevant literary, theoretical and
political contexts: identity, hybridity, liminality, magical realism and the
postcolonial/postmodern debate.
Chapter I establishes Azaro and Zahra as liminal beings from birth, whose childhood
rituals are incomplete and who continually subvert parental and social expectation. This
examination of liminality may be extended by reading the characters as emblems of their
respective nations-in-waiting.
Chapter II focuses on the tension between biology and culture within Zahra's gendered
identity and demonstrates empowerment in her choice to remain liminal in a 'potential space'.
Azaro's shifting sexual awareness is examined as a manifestation of his liminality. The
allegorical reading of Zahra's life is continued, and a connection made between sexual and
political corruption in the English texts.
Chapter III centres on the fluidity of Azaro's boundaries and perception. Like Zahra's,
his liminality is chosen, as he decides to live in a potential space between human and spirit.
Zahra, too, has a special relationship with the spirit world; she and Azaro are shown to have
revelatory visions of political significance.
The Conclusion brings together the analysis of Azaro's and Zahra's identities before
extending the liminal states of the protagonists to those of reader and artist. It concludes that
these texts offer new opportunities for the understanding of postcolonial texts and moving
beyond the duality of the postcolonial/postmodern debate.Arthur and the Scots : narratives, nations, and sovereignty in the later Middle Ageshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9750
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZHanna, Elizabeth H.'Game' in The Tale of Gamelynhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9531
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZDavis, Alexander LeeBetween courtesy and constancy: The Faerie Queene, books VI and VIIhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9490
The 1609 edition of The Faerie Queene claims that the Mutabilitie Cantos, printed for the very first time, constitute part of a seventh Book of the poem, a “LEGEND OF Constancie.” This essay reads the figure of Meliboe in Book VI of Spenser’s poem as a spokesperson for the constant world-view. It argues that he is the vehicle for a critique of Stoic philosophy, and it offers a reading of The Mutabilitie Cantos as an attempt to reconstitute a constant virtue, in part through a revision of Stoic and Neostoic discourses of property and possession.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZDavis, Alexander LeeThe 1609 edition of The Faerie Queene claims that the Mutabilitie Cantos, printed for the very first time, constitute part of a seventh Book of the poem, a “LEGEND OF Constancie.” This essay reads the figure of Meliboe in Book VI of Spenser’s poem as a spokesperson for the constant world-view. It argues that he is the vehicle for a critique of Stoic philosophy, and it offers a reading of The Mutabilitie Cantos as an attempt to reconstitute a constant virtue, in part through a revision of Stoic and Neostoic discourses of property and possession.A rebellious past : history, theatre and the England riotshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9247
Alain Badiou has argued that the England riots of 2011, in dialogue with societal upheavals around the world that same year, demonstrated fundamental crises in our governing social, economic and political discourses. Whilst institutional responses to the riots treated them as an aberration, Badiou believes them to be symptomatic of a broader rebirth of ‘history’ – the coalescing of past and present events into a congruent trajectory with powerful implications for the future. Using Badiou’s argument as a starting point, this article considers two theatrical responses to the riots – Nicholas Kent’s premiere of Gillian Slovo’s The Riots at the Tricycle, and Sean Holmes’ revival of Edward Bond’s Saved at the Lyric Hammersmith. By looking at the ways in which the productions sought to historicise the riots, I unpick both their interpretations of these events, and the contributions they were able to make to the urgent and ongoing discussions that the riots have generated.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZHaddow, SamAlain Badiou has argued that the England riots of 2011, in dialogue with societal upheavals around the world that same year, demonstrated fundamental crises in our governing social, economic and political discourses. Whilst institutional responses to the riots treated them as an aberration, Badiou believes them to be symptomatic of a broader rebirth of ‘history’ – the coalescing of past and present events into a congruent trajectory with powerful implications for the future. Using Badiou’s argument as a starting point, this article considers two theatrical responses to the riots – Nicholas Kent’s premiere of Gillian Slovo’s The Riots at the Tricycle, and Sean Holmes’ revival of Edward Bond’s Saved at the Lyric Hammersmith. By looking at the ways in which the productions sought to historicise the riots, I unpick both their interpretations of these events, and the contributions they were able to make to the urgent and ongoing discussions that the riots have generated.Before the Colditz myth : telling POW stories in postwar British cinemahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9232
Before the concretization of the ‘Colditz Myth’ in the mid-1950s, British cinema’s engagement with the POW narrative took unexpected generic forms. The Captive Heart (1946) and The Wooden Horse (1950) draw on the narrative conventions and structures of feeling mobilized by documentary realism, romance, melodrama and crime. Exploring these films as hybrid genres draws attention to their capacity to symbolize a range of postwar social anxieties, in particular regarding demobilisation, repatriation and the reconstruction of peacetime masculinities. The films depict the frustration and boredom of incarceration, and build narratives of reassurance out of group and individual coping strategies. Yet, while characters might escape, the ‘duty to escape’ is not a central preoccupation: rather the films focus on the relationship between camp and home, and the reconstruction of the incarcerated male subject. Between 1946 and 1955, cinema variously imagines the prisoner of war camp as a space of holistic reconstruction, and as a site for the reconstruction of male agency through productive labour. These films, then, bear little resemblance to the war genre through which they are usually conceptualised: rather they draw on domestic tropes to examine the pressures confronting the male subject in the aftermath of war.
2014-08-01T00:00:00ZPlain, GillBefore the concretization of the ‘Colditz Myth’ in the mid-1950s, British cinema’s engagement with the POW narrative took unexpected generic forms. The Captive Heart (1946) and The Wooden Horse (1950) draw on the narrative conventions and structures of feeling mobilized by documentary realism, romance, melodrama and crime. Exploring these films as hybrid genres draws attention to their capacity to symbolize a range of postwar social anxieties, in particular regarding demobilisation, repatriation and the reconstruction of peacetime masculinities. The films depict the frustration and boredom of incarceration, and build narratives of reassurance out of group and individual coping strategies. Yet, while characters might escape, the ‘duty to escape’ is not a central preoccupation: rather the films focus on the relationship between camp and home, and the reconstruction of the incarcerated male subject. Between 1946 and 1955, cinema variously imagines the prisoner of war camp as a space of holistic reconstruction, and as a site for the reconstruction of male agency through productive labour. These films, then, bear little resemblance to the war genre through which they are usually conceptualised: rather they draw on domestic tropes to examine the pressures confronting the male subject in the aftermath of war.Coming home again : Johannes Hofer, Edmund Spenser, and premodern nostalgiahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9098
The word ‘nostalgia’ was coined by the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer in his 1688 Dissertatio Medica de Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe. Hofer’s treatise and Edmund Spenser’s 1595 poem Colin Clovts Come home againe exemplify a premodern nostalgia. Hofer moves between moments of familiarity and alienation, whilst Spenser’s poem offers a richly imaginative response to the Elizabethan attempt to ‘plant’ new homes in Ireland. In each case, premodern nostalgia situates the longing for home within patterns of doubling and repetition that unsettle ideas of origin and belonging even as they propagate them.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZDavis, Alexander LeeThe word ‘nostalgia’ was coined by the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer in his 1688 Dissertatio Medica de Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe. Hofer’s treatise and Edmund Spenser’s 1595 poem Colin Clovts Come home againe exemplify a premodern nostalgia. Hofer moves between moments of familiarity and alienation, whilst Spenser’s poem offers a richly imaginative response to the Elizabethan attempt to ‘plant’ new homes in Ireland. In each case, premodern nostalgia situates the longing for home within patterns of doubling and repetition that unsettle ideas of origin and belonging even as they propagate them.Keats, myth, and the science of sympathyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/9086
This essay considers the connections between myth and sympathy in Keats’s poetic theory and practice. It argues that the ‘Ode to Psyche’ exemplifies the way in which Keats uses mythological narrative, and the related trope of apostrophe, to promote a restrained form of sympathy, which preserves an objectifying distance between the poet and the feelings that his poetry examines. This model of sympathy is informed by Keats’s medical training: the influential surgeon Astley Cooper and The Hospital Pupil’s Guide (1816) both identify a sensitive but restrained sympathy for patients’ suffering as an essential part of the scientific and professional methods of nineteenth-century medicine. However, while The Hospital Pupil’s Guide claims that mythological superstition has been superseded in medicine by positivist science, Keats’s ode suggests that myth retains a central role in poetry, as the foundation of a poetic method that mediates between imaginative sympathy and objective impartiality.
2016-07-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulThis essay considers the connections between myth and sympathy in Keats’s poetic theory and practice. It argues that the ‘Ode to Psyche’ exemplifies the way in which Keats uses mythological narrative, and the related trope of apostrophe, to promote a restrained form of sympathy, which preserves an objectifying distance between the poet and the feelings that his poetry examines. This model of sympathy is informed by Keats’s medical training: the influential surgeon Astley Cooper and The Hospital Pupil’s Guide (1816) both identify a sensitive but restrained sympathy for patients’ suffering as an essential part of the scientific and professional methods of nineteenth-century medicine. However, while The Hospital Pupil’s Guide claims that mythological superstition has been superseded in medicine by positivist science, Keats’s ode suggests that myth retains a central role in poetry, as the foundation of a poetic method that mediates between imaginative sympathy and objective impartiality.The life and work of Willa Muir, 1890-1955http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9073
The thesis reconstructs the first sixty-five years of the life of Willa Muir, and
provides a preliminary critical analysis of her pre-1955 works.
Wilhelmina Anderson was born in 1890 in Montrose where she spent the first,
formative seventeen years of her life before proceeding to St Andrews
University in 1907. Her university years produced academic and social
success, but also the pain of a disintegrating romantic relationship and the
horror of her brother's nervous breakdown. She spent the later war years in
London studying child psychology at Bedford College, and living in the city's
East End at Mansfield House University Settlement. She met Edwin Muir in
September 1918 and married him in June 1919 - a development which cost her
the vice-principal's post at Gypsy Hill Training College. They spent their first
difficult married years in London where Willa pursued subsistence
employment and struggled to contain the fears which plagued Edwin: but
they were overwhelmed by London life and escaped into Europe for three
years. This adventure included a period in Prague and one during which
Willa taught at A.S. Neill's school near Dresden. They returned to three
frustrating years in Willa's mother's Montrose house (where Willa wrote
Women: An Inquiry) and a damp Buckinghamshire cottage from which they
escaped to the cheaper, warmer climes of southern France. Five years in
Crowborough then ensued; Willa produced a son, an outpouring of
translations and a novel called Imagined Corners. The three years which they
then spent in Hampstead were amongst the happiest in Willa's life. She
produced her second novel, Mrs Ritchie, but also experienced her sons road
accident. This event drove them to seek a less populous location and they
moved to St Andrews. This was a nightmarish period in which they suffered
social ostracism, illness and the effects of the Second World War. Willa wrote
Mrs Grundy in Scotland. Edwin then began an eight year association with
the British Council which started with war work in Edinburgh and then took
them back to Prague. This was an initially happy experience which was
soured by internal machinations at the Council and the horror of the 1948
Communist putsch. They were physically and emotionally injured by this
experience but were healed by a second British Council posting to Rome. The
final chapter describes their residency at Newbattle Abbey College in
Scotland - where Edwin was appointed to the post of warden - and explores
Willa's crisis of confidence during this period. The thesis ends at the point of
the Muir's 1955 departure for Harvard University. It is a natural hiatus in
Willa's personal history and marks the beginning of a comparatively fallow
period in her creative life.
1997-01-01T00:00:00ZAllen, Kirsty AnneThe thesis reconstructs the first sixty-five years of the life of Willa Muir, and
provides a preliminary critical analysis of her pre-1955 works.
Wilhelmina Anderson was born in 1890 in Montrose where she spent the first,
formative seventeen years of her life before proceeding to St Andrews
University in 1907. Her university years produced academic and social
success, but also the pain of a disintegrating romantic relationship and the
horror of her brother's nervous breakdown. She spent the later war years in
London studying child psychology at Bedford College, and living in the city's
East End at Mansfield House University Settlement. She met Edwin Muir in
September 1918 and married him in June 1919 - a development which cost her
the vice-principal's post at Gypsy Hill Training College. They spent their first
difficult married years in London where Willa pursued subsistence
employment and struggled to contain the fears which plagued Edwin: but
they were overwhelmed by London life and escaped into Europe for three
years. This adventure included a period in Prague and one during which
Willa taught at A.S. Neill's school near Dresden. They returned to three
frustrating years in Willa's mother's Montrose house (where Willa wrote
Women: An Inquiry) and a damp Buckinghamshire cottage from which they
escaped to the cheaper, warmer climes of southern France. Five years in
Crowborough then ensued; Willa produced a son, an outpouring of
translations and a novel called Imagined Corners. The three years which they
then spent in Hampstead were amongst the happiest in Willa's life. She
produced her second novel, Mrs Ritchie, but also experienced her sons road
accident. This event drove them to seek a less populous location and they
moved to St Andrews. This was a nightmarish period in which they suffered
social ostracism, illness and the effects of the Second World War. Willa wrote
Mrs Grundy in Scotland. Edwin then began an eight year association with
the British Council which started with war work in Edinburgh and then took
them back to Prague. This was an initially happy experience which was
soured by internal machinations at the Council and the horror of the 1948
Communist putsch. They were physically and emotionally injured by this
experience but were healed by a second British Council posting to Rome. The
final chapter describes their residency at Newbattle Abbey College in
Scotland - where Edwin was appointed to the post of warden - and explores
Willa's crisis of confidence during this period. The thesis ends at the point of
the Muir's 1955 departure for Harvard University. It is a natural hiatus in
Willa's personal history and marks the beginning of a comparatively fallow
period in her creative life.Mann and gender in old English prose : a pilot studyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8978
It has long been known that OE mann was used in gender-neutral as well as gender-specific contexts. Because of the enormous volume of its attestations in Old English prose, the more precise usage patterns of mann remain, however, largely uncharted, and existing lexicographical tools provide only a basic picture. This article aims to present a preliminary study of the various uses of mann as attested in Old English prose, particularly in its surprisingly consistent use by an individual author, namely that of the ninth-century Old English Martyrology. Patterns emerging from this text are then tested against other prose material. Particular attention is paid to gender-specific usage, examples of which are shown to be exceptional for a word which largely occurs in gender-neutral contexts.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZRauer, ChristineIt has long been known that OE mann was used in gender-neutral as well as gender-specific contexts. Because of the enormous volume of its attestations in Old English prose, the more precise usage patterns of mann remain, however, largely uncharted, and existing lexicographical tools provide only a basic picture. This article aims to present a preliminary study of the various uses of mann as attested in Old English prose, particularly in its surprisingly consistent use by an individual author, namely that of the ninth-century Old English Martyrology. Patterns emerging from this text are then tested against other prose material. Particular attention is paid to gender-specific usage, examples of which are shown to be exceptional for a word which largely occurs in gender-neutral contexts.Beyond the grand tour: unearthly Italyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8896
2016-05-30T00:00:00ZStabler, Jane SusanHistory will eat itself: Rory Mullarkey's "Cannibals" and the terrors of end-narrativeshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8866
Rory Mullarkey’s Cannibals (2013), an odyssey from post-Soviet Ukraine to contemporary Britain, catalogues the destructive power of teleological historical narratives through the eyes of a protagonist “mutilated in acts of spectacular terror” (Gray 205). This article aligns Mullarkey’s play with the anti-narrative political philosophy of John Gray, criticizing their approaches as implicitly valorising the very philosophies they purport to oppose. Offering an alternative reading of Cannibals through the lens of Alain Badiou’s Rebirth of History (2012), I contend that the play opens up a space of resistance against the totalizing impulses of the present, one in which “the power of an Idea may take root” (Badiou 15).
2014-12-05T00:00:00ZHaddow, SamRory Mullarkey’s Cannibals (2013), an odyssey from post-Soviet Ukraine to contemporary Britain, catalogues the destructive power of teleological historical narratives through the eyes of a protagonist “mutilated in acts of spectacular terror” (Gray 205). This article aligns Mullarkey’s play with the anti-narrative political philosophy of John Gray, criticizing their approaches as implicitly valorising the very philosophies they purport to oppose. Offering an alternative reading of Cannibals through the lens of Alain Badiou’s Rebirth of History (2012), I contend that the play opens up a space of resistance against the totalizing impulses of the present, one in which “the power of an Idea may take root” (Badiou 15).Evidence for the continued use of medieval medical prescriptions in the sixteenth century : a fifteenth-century remedy book and its later ownerhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8437
This article examines a fifteenth-century remedy book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299, and describes its collection of 314 medieval medical prescriptions. The recipes are organised broadly from head to toe, and often several remedies are offered for the same complaint. Some individual recipes are transcribed with modern English translations. The few non-recipe texts are also noted. The difference between a remedy book and a leechbook is explained, and this manuscript is situated in relation to other known examples of late medieval medical anthologies. The particular feature that distinguishes Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299 from other similar volumes is the evidence that it continued to be used during the sixteenth century. This usage was of two kinds. Firstly, the London lawyer who owned it not only inscribed his name but annotated the original recipe collection in various ways, providing finding-aids that made it much more user-friendly. Secondly, he, and other members of his family, added another 43 recipes to the original collection (some examples of these are also transcribed). These two layers of readerly engagement with the manuscript are interrogated in detail in order to reveal what ailments may have troubled this family most, and to judge how much faith they placed in the old remedies contained in this old book. It is argued that the knowledge preserved in medieval books enjoyed a longevity that extended beyond the period of the manuscript book, and that manuscripts were read and valued long after the advent of printing.
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 104798/Z/14/Z).
2016-04-01T00:00:00ZConnolly, MargaretThis article examines a fifteenth-century remedy book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299, and describes its collection of 314 medieval medical prescriptions. The recipes are organised broadly from head to toe, and often several remedies are offered for the same complaint. Some individual recipes are transcribed with modern English translations. The few non-recipe texts are also noted. The difference between a remedy book and a leechbook is explained, and this manuscript is situated in relation to other known examples of late medieval medical anthologies. The particular feature that distinguishes Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299 from other similar volumes is the evidence that it continued to be used during the sixteenth century. This usage was of two kinds. Firstly, the London lawyer who owned it not only inscribed his name but annotated the original recipe collection in various ways, providing finding-aids that made it much more user-friendly. Secondly, he, and other members of his family, added another 43 recipes to the original collection (some examples of these are also transcribed). These two layers of readerly engagement with the manuscript are interrogated in detail in order to reveal what ailments may have troubled this family most, and to judge how much faith they placed in the old remedies contained in this old book. It is argued that the knowledge preserved in medieval books enjoyed a longevity that extended beyond the period of the manuscript book, and that manuscripts were read and valued long after the advent of printing.Recent studies in the nineteenth centuryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8277
An assessment of recent scholarly work treating the literature of the nineteenth century and some general observations on the state of the profession.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZStabler, Jane SusanAn assessment of recent scholarly work treating the literature of the nineteenth century and some general observations on the state of the profession.John Keats's medical notebook and the poet's career : an editorial, critical and biographical reassessmenthttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8247
This thesis explores the significance of John Keats’s medical Notebook, and his time at Guy’s Hospital (October 1815 – March 1817), for the poet’s career. As a primary contribution, it offers a new transcription of Keats’s medical Notebook (Appendix 1). The transcription reproduces Keats’s text and indicates the layout of his notes, but is neither a facsimile, nor a new edition: the visual form of Keats’s notes is not reproduced, nor do I offer critical annotations; commentary follows in subsequent chapters. The achievements, limitations and influence of the only edition of Keats’s medical Notebook — Maurice Buxton Forman’s from 1934 — are the subject of the first chapter, which also considers accounts of Keats’s medical career in Keats biography and criticism. Chapter two focuses on the poems Keats wrote while at Guy’s to show that the two aspects of his life — medicine and poetry — were mutually influential. Chapter three considers Keats’s medical notes in comparison to a fellow-student’s, indicating how some characteristics of Keats’s note-taking prefigure aspects of his mature poetry. Chapter four finds Endymion suffused with medical knowledge and imagery, and argues that this was a vital aspect of the poem’s depiction of passion. Chapter five suggests that the publication of Keats’s 1820 volume was greatly influenced by questions of health, medicine, and disease; concerns reflected by the poems in it, which also reveal the extent of Keats’s continued awareness of, and interest in, contemporary medical thought. In sum, the thesis argues that the origins of Keats’s poetic achievement can be traced in his medical Notebook and ‘hospital’ poems, and that the ability to infuse his poetry with medical knowledge was a vital component of Keats’s poetic power and achievement.
2016-06-21T00:00:00ZGhosh, HrileenaThis thesis explores the significance of John Keats’s medical Notebook, and his time at Guy’s Hospital (October 1815 – March 1817), for the poet’s career. As a primary contribution, it offers a new transcription of Keats’s medical Notebook (Appendix 1). The transcription reproduces Keats’s text and indicates the layout of his notes, but is neither a facsimile, nor a new edition: the visual form of Keats’s notes is not reproduced, nor do I offer critical annotations; commentary follows in subsequent chapters. The achievements, limitations and influence of the only edition of Keats’s medical Notebook — Maurice Buxton Forman’s from 1934 — are the subject of the first chapter, which also considers accounts of Keats’s medical career in Keats biography and criticism. Chapter two focuses on the poems Keats wrote while at Guy’s to show that the two aspects of his life — medicine and poetry — were mutually influential. Chapter three considers Keats’s medical notes in comparison to a fellow-student’s, indicating how some characteristics of Keats’s note-taking prefigure aspects of his mature poetry. Chapter four finds Endymion suffused with medical knowledge and imagery, and argues that this was a vital aspect of the poem’s depiction of passion. Chapter five suggests that the publication of Keats’s 1820 volume was greatly influenced by questions of health, medicine, and disease; concerns reflected by the poems in it, which also reveal the extent of Keats’s continued awareness of, and interest in, contemporary medical thought. In sum, the thesis argues that the origins of Keats’s poetic achievement can be traced in his medical Notebook and ‘hospital’ poems, and that the ability to infuse his poetry with medical knowledge was a vital component of Keats’s poetic power and achievement.Austen's literary alembic : Sanditon, medicine, and the science of the novelhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8075
This essay examines the representation of science in Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon. It argues that this text, written in the months before Austen’s death in 1817, points to a development in her understanding of the novel, one that associates the form with the emerging scientific disciplines of the early nineteenth century through its emphasis on empirical objectivity and professional expertise. These traits are exemplified in the medical profession, which is central to Sanditon’s plot. Austen’s text presents a range of different types of medical knowledge and practice, and it celebrates professional medical advice as a safe middle ground between the commercial exploitation of quackery and the uninformed subjectivism of hypochondria. Similar issues are at stake in the text’s considerations of the literary marketplace: while acknowledging some of the problems involved in the growing commodification of the novel, Sanditon also satirizes the undisciplined reading habits of careless readers, and it promotes a view of the novel as an objective and professional articulation of knowledge. Sanditon’s advocacy of professional objectivity is conveyed in its narrative stance as well as its plot: the text focuses not on the subjectivity of a single protagonist but on the objective observation and experimental comparison of the interactions between a number of characters and between those characters and their environment. The essay concludes that the methodologies of science, as they were practiced within the medical profession, played a significant part in Austen’s understanding of the profession of writing at the end of her career.
2016-04-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulThis essay examines the representation of science in Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon. It argues that this text, written in the months before Austen’s death in 1817, points to a development in her understanding of the novel, one that associates the form with the emerging scientific disciplines of the early nineteenth century through its emphasis on empirical objectivity and professional expertise. These traits are exemplified in the medical profession, which is central to Sanditon’s plot. Austen’s text presents a range of different types of medical knowledge and practice, and it celebrates professional medical advice as a safe middle ground between the commercial exploitation of quackery and the uninformed subjectivism of hypochondria. Similar issues are at stake in the text’s considerations of the literary marketplace: while acknowledging some of the problems involved in the growing commodification of the novel, Sanditon also satirizes the undisciplined reading habits of careless readers, and it promotes a view of the novel as an objective and professional articulation of knowledge. Sanditon’s advocacy of professional objectivity is conveyed in its narrative stance as well as its plot: the text focuses not on the subjectivity of a single protagonist but on the objective observation and experimental comparison of the interactions between a number of characters and between those characters and their environment. The essay concludes that the methodologies of science, as they were practiced within the medical profession, played a significant part in Austen’s understanding of the profession of writing at the end of her career.Twentieth-century poetry and science : science in the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid, Judith Wright, Edwin Morgan, and Miroslav Holubhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/8059
The aim of this thesis is to arrive at a characterisation of twentieth century poetry and science by means of a detailed study of the work of four poets who engaged extensively with science and whose writing lives spanned the greater part of the period. The study of science in the work of the four chosen poets, Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 – 1978), Judith Wright (1915 – 2000), Edwin Morgan (1920 – 2010), and Miroslav Holub (1923 – 1998), is preceded by a literature survey and an initial theoretical chapter. This initial part of the thesis outlines the interdisciplinary history of the academic subject of poetry and science, addressing, amongst other things, the challenges presented by the episodes known as the ‘two cultures’ and the ‘science wars’. Seeking to offer a perspective on poetry and science more aligned to scientific materialism than is typical in the interdiscipline, a systemic challenge to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is put forward in the first chapter. Additionally, the founding work of poetry and science, I. A. Richards’s Science and Poetry (1926), is assessed both in the context in which it was written, and from a contemporary viewpoint; and, as one way to understand science in poetry, a theory of the creative misreading of science is developed, loosely based on Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1973). The detailed study of science in poetry commences in Chapter II with Hugh MacDiarmid’s late work in English, dating from his period on the Shetland Island of Whalsay (1933 – 1941). The thesis in this chapter is that this work can be seen as a radical integration of poetry and science; this concept is considered in a variety of ways including through a computational model, originally suggested by Robert Crawford. The Australian poet Judith Wright, the subject of Chapter III, is less well known to poetry and science, but a detailed engagement with physics can be identified, including her use of four-dimensional imagery, which has considerable support from background evidence. Biology in her poetry is also studied in the light of recent work by John Holmes. In Chapter IV, science in the poetry of Edwin Morgan is discussed in terms of its origin and development, from the perspective of the mythologised science in his science fiction poetry, and from the ‘hard’ technological perspective of his computer poems. Morgan’s work is cast in relief by readings which are against the grain of some but not all of his published comments. The thesis rounds on its theme of materialism with the fifth and final chapter which studies the work of Miroslav Holub, a poet and practising scientist in communist-era Prague. Holub’s work, it is argued, represents a rare and important literary expression of scientific materialism. The focus on materialism in the thesis is not mechanistic, nor exclusive of the domain of the imagination; instead it frames the contrast between the original science and the transformed poetic version. The thesis is drawn together in a short conclusion.
2015-12-14T00:00:00ZGibson, DonaldThe aim of this thesis is to arrive at a characterisation of twentieth century poetry and science by means of a detailed study of the work of four poets who engaged extensively with science and whose writing lives spanned the greater part of the period. The study of science in the work of the four chosen poets, Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 – 1978), Judith Wright (1915 – 2000), Edwin Morgan (1920 – 2010), and Miroslav Holub (1923 – 1998), is preceded by a literature survey and an initial theoretical chapter. This initial part of the thesis outlines the interdisciplinary history of the academic subject of poetry and science, addressing, amongst other things, the challenges presented by the episodes known as the ‘two cultures’ and the ‘science wars’. Seeking to offer a perspective on poetry and science more aligned to scientific materialism than is typical in the interdiscipline, a systemic challenge to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is put forward in the first chapter. Additionally, the founding work of poetry and science, I. A. Richards’s Science and Poetry (1926), is assessed both in the context in which it was written, and from a contemporary viewpoint; and, as one way to understand science in poetry, a theory of the creative misreading of science is developed, loosely based on Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1973). The detailed study of science in poetry commences in Chapter II with Hugh MacDiarmid’s late work in English, dating from his period on the Shetland Island of Whalsay (1933 – 1941). The thesis in this chapter is that this work can be seen as a radical integration of poetry and science; this concept is considered in a variety of ways including through a computational model, originally suggested by Robert Crawford. The Australian poet Judith Wright, the subject of Chapter III, is less well known to poetry and science, but a detailed engagement with physics can be identified, including her use of four-dimensional imagery, which has considerable support from background evidence. Biology in her poetry is also studied in the light of recent work by John Holmes. In Chapter IV, science in the poetry of Edwin Morgan is discussed in terms of its origin and development, from the perspective of the mythologised science in his science fiction poetry, and from the ‘hard’ technological perspective of his computer poems. Morgan’s work is cast in relief by readings which are against the grain of some but not all of his published comments. The thesis rounds on its theme of materialism with the fifth and final chapter which studies the work of Miroslav Holub, a poet and practising scientist in communist-era Prague. Holub’s work, it is argued, represents a rare and important literary expression of scientific materialism. The focus on materialism in the thesis is not mechanistic, nor exclusive of the domain of the imagination; instead it frames the contrast between the original science and the transformed poetic version. The thesis is drawn together in a short conclusion.Infinite movement : Robert Browning and the dramatic traveloguehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7958
2014-07-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulRevenants from the Church to literaturehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7914
Factual accounts of revenants – the risen dead – seized the medieval imagination in the early eleventh century, and were recorded by serious historians and ecclesiastics as true. They then began to appear in secular imaginative literature and art, growing progressively more elaborate and frightening throughout the Middle Ages whilst retaining many of the religious overtones expressed overtly in the ecclesiastic tales. By the early modern and modern period, the tales were removed from any overt religious context and were told as purely imaginative literature.
The academic half of this thesis explores the influence on the tales of the Christian doctrine of resurrection and the cult of the body of Christ and of the saints, then traces the migration of those tales into imaginative literature from the Middle Ages to the present. It identifies key motifs from the medieval chronicles and imaginative literature that continue to appear in modern stories, and explores the extent to which Christian eschatology altered perceptions of the dead and why, in an increasingly secular context, fascination with such tales continued into modern literature, what part fear of death played throughout this period, and how that fear was expressed, first in an ecclesiastical context, then in imaginative literature through horror stories.
The creative half of my thesis is a literary fiction novel updating a medieval revenant tale, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, to twenty-first century New England.
2016-06-21T00:00:00ZLivermore, ChristianFactual accounts of revenants – the risen dead – seized the medieval imagination in the early eleventh century, and were recorded by serious historians and ecclesiastics as true. They then began to appear in secular imaginative literature and art, growing progressively more elaborate and frightening throughout the Middle Ages whilst retaining many of the religious overtones expressed overtly in the ecclesiastic tales. By the early modern and modern period, the tales were removed from any overt religious context and were told as purely imaginative literature.
The academic half of this thesis explores the influence on the tales of the Christian doctrine of resurrection and the cult of the body of Christ and of the saints, then traces the migration of those tales into imaginative literature from the Middle Ages to the present. It identifies key motifs from the medieval chronicles and imaginative literature that continue to appear in modern stories, and explores the extent to which Christian eschatology altered perceptions of the dead and why, in an increasingly secular context, fascination with such tales continued into modern literature, what part fear of death played throughout this period, and how that fear was expressed, first in an ecclesiastical context, then in imaginative literature through horror stories.
The creative half of my thesis is a literary fiction novel updating a medieval revenant tale, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, to twenty-first century New England.Photopoetry : a critical history of collaborations between poets and photographers in the Anglophone world, 1845-2015http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7811
This thesis examines the history of collaborations between poets and photographers in the Anglophone world, from 1845 to 2015, and argues for a new form of art distinct from the photobook. It identifies a new body of work, ‘photopoetry’, and develops this discovery into a critical exegesis of its forms and potentials. Proceeding chronologically, this thesis explores photopoetic history from its nineteenth-century roots to modern-day collaborations between renowned poets and photographers. Chapter I examines early experiments in photopoetic form, including scrapbooks and stereographs, and identifies two thematic trends characterising photopoetic history to the present day: the picturesque and the theatrical. The second chapter focuses on the identity politics of photopoetic books in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, exploring how the relationship between poem and photograph can both perpetuate and subvert representations of the objectified other, from British India to the American South. Chapter III theorises Imagism from a photographic perspective, examining how, in the absence of any discernibly modernist photopoetry book, the most important dialogue between poem and photograph was enacted within Imagist verse. It proceeds to examine the introduction of urban environments into early-to-mid-twentieth-century photopoetry. Chapter IV analyses the reinterpretation of photopoetic topography in mid-to-late-twentieth-century collaborations, exploring how picturesque landscapes in nineteenth-century photopoetry were reinvented as immersive environments that echoed the rise of photopoetic co-authorship and the development of more symbiotic, less literal photopoetic relationships. The fifth chapter expands upon ideas analysed in Chapter IV, arguing how, in narrowing both poetic and photographic focus to objects rather than picturesque vistas, twenty-first-century photopoetry encourages a non-linear approach to reading and viewing, abandoning the ‘journey’ paradigm of earlier photopoetry. Overall, this thesis represents the first book-length history of photopoetry, and expounds both a new area of analysis for scholars of text and image, and a new critical discourse for such analyses.
2015-11-30T00:00:00ZNott, Michael J.This thesis examines the history of collaborations between poets and photographers in the Anglophone world, from 1845 to 2015, and argues for a new form of art distinct from the photobook. It identifies a new body of work, ‘photopoetry’, and develops this discovery into a critical exegesis of its forms and potentials. Proceeding chronologically, this thesis explores photopoetic history from its nineteenth-century roots to modern-day collaborations between renowned poets and photographers. Chapter I examines early experiments in photopoetic form, including scrapbooks and stereographs, and identifies two thematic trends characterising photopoetic history to the present day: the picturesque and the theatrical. The second chapter focuses on the identity politics of photopoetic books in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, exploring how the relationship between poem and photograph can both perpetuate and subvert representations of the objectified other, from British India to the American South. Chapter III theorises Imagism from a photographic perspective, examining how, in the absence of any discernibly modernist photopoetry book, the most important dialogue between poem and photograph was enacted within Imagist verse. It proceeds to examine the introduction of urban environments into early-to-mid-twentieth-century photopoetry. Chapter IV analyses the reinterpretation of photopoetic topography in mid-to-late-twentieth-century collaborations, exploring how picturesque landscapes in nineteenth-century photopoetry were reinvented as immersive environments that echoed the rise of photopoetic co-authorship and the development of more symbiotic, less literal photopoetic relationships. The fifth chapter expands upon ideas analysed in Chapter IV, arguing how, in narrowing both poetic and photographic focus to objects rather than picturesque vistas, twenty-first-century photopoetry encourages a non-linear approach to reading and viewing, abandoning the ‘journey’ paradigm of earlier photopoetry. Overall, this thesis represents the first book-length history of photopoetry, and expounds both a new area of analysis for scholars of text and image, and a new critical discourse for such analyses.Tennyson and the embodied mindhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7659
2009-03-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulHardy's creatures : encountering animals in Thomas Hardy's novelshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7648
‘Hardy’s Creatures’ examines the human and nonhuman animals who walk and crawl and twine and fly and trot across and around the pages of Thomas Hardy’s novels: figures on two feet and on four, some with hands, all with faces. Specifically, the thesis traces the appearances of the term ‘creature’ in Hardy’s works as a way of levelling the ground between humans and animals and of reconfiguring traditional boundaries between the two. Hardy firmly believed in a ‘shifted [...] centre of altruism’ after Darwin that extended ethical consideration to include animals. In moments of encounter between humans and animals in his texts—encounters often highlighted by the word ‘creature’—Hardy seems to test the boundaries that were being debated by the Victorian scientific and philosophical communities: boundaries based on moral sense or moral agency (as discussed in chapter two), language and reason (chapter three), the possession of a face (chapter four), and the capacity to suffer and perceive pain (chapter five). His use of ‘creature’, a word that can have both distinctly human and uniquely animal meanings, draws upon the multiple (and at times contradictory) connotations embedded in it, complicating attempts to delineate decisively between two realms and offering instead ambiguity and irony. Hardy’s focus on the material world and on embodiment, complemented by his willingness to shift perspective and scale and to imagine the worlds of other creatures, gestures towards empathy and compassion while recognizing the unknowability of the individual. His approach seems a precursor to the kind of thinking about and with animals being done by animal studies today. Encountering Hardy’s creatures offers a new way of wandering through Wessex, inviting readers to reconsider their own perspectives on what it means to be a creature.
2015-09-07T00:00:00ZWest, Anna‘Hardy’s Creatures’ examines the human and nonhuman animals who walk and crawl and twine and fly and trot across and around the pages of Thomas Hardy’s novels: figures on two feet and on four, some with hands, all with faces. Specifically, the thesis traces the appearances of the term ‘creature’ in Hardy’s works as a way of levelling the ground between humans and animals and of reconfiguring traditional boundaries between the two. Hardy firmly believed in a ‘shifted [...] centre of altruism’ after Darwin that extended ethical consideration to include animals. In moments of encounter between humans and animals in his texts—encounters often highlighted by the word ‘creature’—Hardy seems to test the boundaries that were being debated by the Victorian scientific and philosophical communities: boundaries based on moral sense or moral agency (as discussed in chapter two), language and reason (chapter three), the possession of a face (chapter four), and the capacity to suffer and perceive pain (chapter five). His use of ‘creature’, a word that can have both distinctly human and uniquely animal meanings, draws upon the multiple (and at times contradictory) connotations embedded in it, complicating attempts to delineate decisively between two realms and offering instead ambiguity and irony. Hardy’s focus on the material world and on embodiment, complemented by his willingness to shift perspective and scale and to imagine the worlds of other creatures, gestures towards empathy and compassion while recognizing the unknowability of the individual. His approach seems a precursor to the kind of thinking about and with animals being done by animal studies today. Encountering Hardy’s creatures offers a new way of wandering through Wessex, inviting readers to reconsider their own perspectives on what it means to be a creature.When King Arthur met the Venus : Romantic Antiquarianism and the Illustration of Anne Bannerman’s “The Prophecy of Merlin”http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7630
The first edition of Bannerman’s Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) contained an erotic engraving of a naked Venus figure, which was declared ‘offensive to decency’ by Scottish audiences in the poet’s native Edinburgh. Garner’s account investigates the controversy surrounding the engraving and the puzzling disparity between it and the ballad it illustrated: the Arthurian-themed ‘Prophecy of Merlin’. Using evidence from Bannerman’s correspondence with noted Scottish male publishers and antiquarians, this essay argues that decision to include the dangerous engraving was symptomatic of current anxieties surrounding a female-authored text which threatened to encroach on antiquarian and Arthurian enquiry.
2013-12-01T00:00:00ZGarner, Katie LouiseThe first edition of Bannerman’s Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) contained an erotic engraving of a naked Venus figure, which was declared ‘offensive to decency’ by Scottish audiences in the poet’s native Edinburgh. Garner’s account investigates the controversy surrounding the engraving and the puzzling disparity between it and the ballad it illustrated: the Arthurian-themed ‘Prophecy of Merlin’. Using evidence from Bannerman’s correspondence with noted Scottish male publishers and antiquarians, this essay argues that decision to include the dangerous engraving was symptomatic of current anxieties surrounding a female-authored text which threatened to encroach on antiquarian and Arthurian enquiry.'A fit person to be Poet Laureate' : Tennyson, in memoriam, and the laureateshiphttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7620
2009-11-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulArthur Hallam's fragments of beinghttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7619
2011-11-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulThe last lines of 'Ulysses'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7618
2012-11-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulGeorge Eliot's poetry of the soulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7609
2008-07-01T00:00:00ZTate, Gregory PaulStructures of authority : postwar masculinity and the British policehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7565
The British police procedural novel of the 1950s has attracted little critical attention, perhaps because the decade is seen as a ‘golden age’ of police legitimacy (Loader and Mulcahy, 2003). This perception is reinforced by the cinema of the period, where the police are predominantly represented as embodying traditional masculinities and demonstrating familiar national virtues. They are also shown to be policing a society that was itself fundamentally homogenous. Yet this template bore little resemblance to the realities of crime in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and it needs to be set against developments in the crime novel. While cinema used the genre to reassure, it is less clear whether the police procedural of the period attempted or achieved the same end. This hypothesis is explored through an examination of John Creasey’s popular Gideon books. Characterised by open endings and a disturbing level of violence, these novels demonstrate a significant transition in the representation of the police in British crime fiction, suggesting that the 1950s procedural was not a source of reassurance, but a textual space that recognised and negotiated the pressures of a changing society.
2015-09-25T00:00:00ZPlain, GillThe British police procedural novel of the 1950s has attracted little critical attention, perhaps because the decade is seen as a ‘golden age’ of police legitimacy (Loader and Mulcahy, 2003). This perception is reinforced by the cinema of the period, where the police are predominantly represented as embodying traditional masculinities and demonstrating familiar national virtues. They are also shown to be policing a society that was itself fundamentally homogenous. Yet this template bore little resemblance to the realities of crime in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and it needs to be set against developments in the crime novel. While cinema used the genre to reassure, it is less clear whether the police procedural of the period attempted or achieved the same end. This hypothesis is explored through an examination of John Creasey’s popular Gideon books. Characterised by open endings and a disturbing level of violence, these novels demonstrate a significant transition in the representation of the police in British crime fiction, suggesting that the 1950s procedural was not a source of reassurance, but a textual space that recognised and negotiated the pressures of a changing society.Part 1: 'True receivers' : Rilke and the contemporary poetics of listening ; Part 2: Poems : Small weatherhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7418
Part 1: ‘True Receivers’: Rilke and the Contemporary Poetics of Listening
In this part of this thesis I argue that a contemporary ‘poetics of listening’ has emerged in the UK, and explore the writing of three of our most significant poets - John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson - to find out why they have become interested in the idea of the poet as a ‘listener’. I suggest that the appeal of this listening stance accounts for their engagement with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, who thought of himself as a listening ‘receiver’; it is proposed that Rilke’s notion of ‘receivership’ and the way his poems relate to the earthly (or the ‘non-human’) also account for the general ‘intensification’ of interest in his work.
An exploration of the shifting status of listening provides context for this study, and I pay particular attention to the way innovations in audio and communications technology influenced Rilke’s late sequences the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. A connection is made between Rilke’s ‘listening poetics’ and the ‘listening’ stance of Ted Hughes and Edward Thomas; this establishes a ‘listening lineage’ for the contemporary poets considered in the thesis.
I also suggest that there are intriguing similarities between the ideas of listening that are emerging in contemporary poetics and Hélène Cixous’ concept of ‘écriture féminine’. Exploring these similarities helps us to understand the implications of the stance of the poet-listener, which is a counter to the idea that as a writer you must ‘find your voice’.
Finally, it is proposed that ‘a poetics of listening’ would benefit from an enriched taxonomy.
Part 2 of the thesis is a collection of my poems entitled ‘Small Weather’.
2015-11-30T00:00:00ZLawrence, FaithPart 1: ‘True Receivers’: Rilke and the Contemporary Poetics of Listening
In this part of this thesis I argue that a contemporary ‘poetics of listening’ has emerged in the UK, and explore the writing of three of our most significant poets - John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson - to find out why they have become interested in the idea of the poet as a ‘listener’. I suggest that the appeal of this listening stance accounts for their engagement with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, who thought of himself as a listening ‘receiver’; it is proposed that Rilke’s notion of ‘receivership’ and the way his poems relate to the earthly (or the ‘non-human’) also account for the general ‘intensification’ of interest in his work.
An exploration of the shifting status of listening provides context for this study, and I pay particular attention to the way innovations in audio and communications technology influenced Rilke’s late sequences the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. A connection is made between Rilke’s ‘listening poetics’ and the ‘listening’ stance of Ted Hughes and Edward Thomas; this establishes a ‘listening lineage’ for the contemporary poets considered in the thesis.
I also suggest that there are intriguing similarities between the ideas of listening that are emerging in contemporary poetics and Hélène Cixous’ concept of ‘écriture féminine’. Exploring these similarities helps us to understand the implications of the stance of the poet-listener, which is a counter to the idea that as a writer you must ‘find your voice’.
Finally, it is proposed that ‘a poetics of listening’ would benefit from an enriched taxonomy.
Part 2 of the thesis is a collection of my poems entitled ‘Small Weather’.George Paton; a study of his life and correspondencehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7119
1956-01-01T00:00:00ZDoig, Ronald PatersonThe creative writer and West Indian society : Jamaica 1900-1950http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7111
1981-01-01T00:00:00ZCobham-Sander, Claudette RhondaIf you see something, say something : the figure of the "other" in the 9/11 novel, and ; Translatie : een roman aan de Bijlmerramphttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/7041
One central question unites the critical and creative halves of this project: how
should fiction respond to a sudden crisis? Through this thesis, I was able to explore the
potential pitfalls authors need to avoid in tackling historic subject matter. This critical half
of this thesis examines the treatment of race in fiction depicting the September 11
attacks. The writers mentioned in this thesis—including Jonathan Safran-Foer, John
Updike, Jay McInerney, Don DeLillo—are considered to be left-of-centre thinkers.
However, their 9/11-related work aims to restore a classical notion of American
hegemony. Chapter I: An American Breed discusses the protagonists of these novels,
and how they represent ideas of upper class American whiteness. Chapter II: Fighting
the Need to be Normal is about the portrayal of terrorists and terrorist bodies. Chapter
III: You Want to Dance, I Want to Watch is about the treatment of African American
characters. The final chapter, Chapter IV: White Crayons is about lower class and
ethnically marked white characters.
The creative half of the thesis is Translatie, a novella. It is written from the
perspectives of two different characters, Jacob and Mia. Jacob is a 17-year-old
Surinamese rent boy who is being sexually abused by his upstairs neighbour. Mia is a
sex-show worker in her early 30s. The novel traces their lives in the week leading up to
the 1992 Bijlmer Air Disaster. After the disaster, they go missing, and their friends and
relatives are left to track them down.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZBell, LenoreOne central question unites the critical and creative halves of this project: how
should fiction respond to a sudden crisis? Through this thesis, I was able to explore the
potential pitfalls authors need to avoid in tackling historic subject matter. This critical half
of this thesis examines the treatment of race in fiction depicting the September 11
attacks. The writers mentioned in this thesis—including Jonathan Safran-Foer, John
Updike, Jay McInerney, Don DeLillo—are considered to be left-of-centre thinkers.
However, their 9/11-related work aims to restore a classical notion of American
hegemony. Chapter I: An American Breed discusses the protagonists of these novels,
and how they represent ideas of upper class American whiteness. Chapter II: Fighting
the Need to be Normal is about the portrayal of terrorists and terrorist bodies. Chapter
III: You Want to Dance, I Want to Watch is about the treatment of African American
characters. The final chapter, Chapter IV: White Crayons is about lower class and
ethnically marked white characters.
The creative half of the thesis is Translatie, a novella. It is written from the
perspectives of two different characters, Jacob and Mia. Jacob is a 17-year-old
Surinamese rent boy who is being sexually abused by his upstairs neighbour. Mia is a
sex-show worker in her early 30s. The novel traces their lives in the week leading up to
the 1992 Bijlmer Air Disaster. After the disaster, they go missing, and their friends and
relatives are left to track them down.Speaking in silence : female agency in sensation fiction, 1850-1880http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7038
My research examines female agency in sensation fiction written from 1850-1880. I draw
upon novels that, despite their popularity at the time of publication, are under-utilised in
literary critical theory today. The relative voicelessness of female characters in sensation
novels illustrates the inefficacy of the legal and educational systems for women. This
speechlessness contrasts sharply with the agency these same female characters often
demonstrate. In the given socio-historical context, it is necessary for the authors to justify
this agency. This is variously done, in some cases by ascribing the force of that agency to
religious conviction, or confrontation with pressing social issues, and in others by
ultimately, and in an unlikely manner, bending it to the demands of a neat and socially
acceptable plot. By reintroducing critical evaluation of lesser-known sensation novels, my
research explores connections between accessible popular literature, featuring powerful
transgressive female characters, and the ‘Woman Question’, thereby addressing aspects
of women’s legal, marital, and material disempowerment.
In Chapter One, I argue that British sensation novels like Marryat’s Love’s Conflict(1865)
and Braddon’s Aurora Floyd (1863) build upon problematic tensions inherent between
women’s private and public lives, transmuting Flaubert’s examination of excessive
sensation and culpability in Madame Bovary (1856) into plot-driven narratives hinging
upon women with secret knowledge. In Chapter Two, I examine the disjunction between
serenely domestic plot outcomes and social anxiety using Wood’s Danesbury House
(1861) and Collins’s The Law and the Lady (1875). In Chapter Three, I draw upon Younge’s
Heir of Redclyffe (1853), MacDonald’s David Elginbrod (1863), and Alcott’s Pauline’s
Passion and Punishment (1863) as examples of popular religious sensation. In Chapter
Four, I return to 1856, the year Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was published to discuss how
the secret knowledge that propels the plots of Reade’s Never Too Late to Mend (1856)
and Skene’s Hidden Depths (1866) underscores the role of Victorian sensation fiction as a
means of social activism. Finally, the thesis conclusion traces connections between
concern over gender, secrets, and identity in these novels, attempting a new constructive
portrayal of feminine identity by addressing contemporary anxiety about women’s roles.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZAndrews, Elizabeth HelenMy research examines female agency in sensation fiction written from 1850-1880. I draw
upon novels that, despite their popularity at the time of publication, are under-utilised in
literary critical theory today. The relative voicelessness of female characters in sensation
novels illustrates the inefficacy of the legal and educational systems for women. This
speechlessness contrasts sharply with the agency these same female characters often
demonstrate. In the given socio-historical context, it is necessary for the authors to justify
this agency. This is variously done, in some cases by ascribing the force of that agency to
religious conviction, or confrontation with pressing social issues, and in others by
ultimately, and in an unlikely manner, bending it to the demands of a neat and socially
acceptable plot. By reintroducing critical evaluation of lesser-known sensation novels, my
research explores connections between accessible popular literature, featuring powerful
transgressive female characters, and the ‘Woman Question’, thereby addressing aspects
of women’s legal, marital, and material disempowerment.
In Chapter One, I argue that British sensation novels like Marryat’s Love’s Conflict(1865)
and Braddon’s Aurora Floyd (1863) build upon problematic tensions inherent between
women’s private and public lives, transmuting Flaubert’s examination of excessive
sensation and culpability in Madame Bovary (1856) into plot-driven narratives hinging
upon women with secret knowledge. In Chapter Two, I examine the disjunction between
serenely domestic plot outcomes and social anxiety using Wood’s Danesbury House
(1861) and Collins’s The Law and the Lady (1875). In Chapter Three, I draw upon Younge’s
Heir of Redclyffe (1853), MacDonald’s David Elginbrod (1863), and Alcott’s Pauline’s
Passion and Punishment (1863) as examples of popular religious sensation. In Chapter
Four, I return to 1856, the year Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was published to discuss how
the secret knowledge that propels the plots of Reade’s Never Too Late to Mend (1856)
and Skene’s Hidden Depths (1866) underscores the role of Victorian sensation fiction as a
means of social activism. Finally, the thesis conclusion traces connections between
concern over gender, secrets, and identity in these novels, attempting a new constructive
portrayal of feminine identity by addressing contemporary anxiety about women’s roles.David Mitchell : The Bone Clockshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6973
2015-06-01T00:00:00ZHarris-Birtill, RoseThe metaphor imperative : a study of metaphor's assuaging role in poetic composition from Ovid to Alice Oswaldhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6870
Part I of the thesis considers the nature and function of metaphor in the articulation of both poetic theme and of poetic self. Using close analysis of texts by Ovid, Shakespeare, George Herbert and a number of contemporary poets, and drawing on material from both published and unpublished interviews which I undertook with Alice Oswald, Glyn Maxwell and Andrew Motion, (the transcripts of which are included in the appendices), this thesis uses metaphor theory, literary criticism and cognitive poetic criticism to argue that the assuaging role of metaphor is fundamental at critical junctures of poetic composition.
Chapter One provides a historical survey of metaphor theory.
Chapter Two, in order to determine the best methodology for my analysis of the key thesis texts, contrasts three different readings of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. Chapter Three suggests the model of Ovidian metamorphosis as a means to examine the assuaging role of metaphor in crisis of consciousness and utterance. The dialectic of sameness and difference, a key property of metaphor, is shown to be intimately connected with the imperative for assuagement in the modern lyric poet.
Chapter Four explores a number of ways in which metaphor is deployed by George Herbert to overcome the personal and poetic inhibitions he experiences as a result of his intimate awareness of a listening God.
Chapter Five examines Andrew Motion’s movement away from the metonymic towards the metaphoric mode in The Customs House.
Chapter Six analyses how Alice Oswald, by creating a radically innovative metaphoric mapping between biography and simile pairs assuages the long litany of violent deaths drawn from Homer’s Iliad.
Chapter Seven examines the way Glyn Maxwell in The Sugar Mile, embraces dramatic analogue and metaphor as a means to address the horror of 9/11. All of the poets examined in the thesis are using metaphor to render the incomprehensible comprehensible.
Part II of the thesis consists of my own poems.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZCranitch, EllenPart I of the thesis considers the nature and function of metaphor in the articulation of both poetic theme and of poetic self. Using close analysis of texts by Ovid, Shakespeare, George Herbert and a number of contemporary poets, and drawing on material from both published and unpublished interviews which I undertook with Alice Oswald, Glyn Maxwell and Andrew Motion, (the transcripts of which are included in the appendices), this thesis uses metaphor theory, literary criticism and cognitive poetic criticism to argue that the assuaging role of metaphor is fundamental at critical junctures of poetic composition.
Chapter One provides a historical survey of metaphor theory.
Chapter Two, in order to determine the best methodology for my analysis of the key thesis texts, contrasts three different readings of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. Chapter Three suggests the model of Ovidian metamorphosis as a means to examine the assuaging role of metaphor in crisis of consciousness and utterance. The dialectic of sameness and difference, a key property of metaphor, is shown to be intimately connected with the imperative for assuagement in the modern lyric poet.
Chapter Four explores a number of ways in which metaphor is deployed by George Herbert to overcome the personal and poetic inhibitions he experiences as a result of his intimate awareness of a listening God.
Chapter Five examines Andrew Motion’s movement away from the metonymic towards the metaphoric mode in The Customs House.
Chapter Six analyses how Alice Oswald, by creating a radically innovative metaphoric mapping between biography and simile pairs assuages the long litany of violent deaths drawn from Homer’s Iliad.
Chapter Seven examines the way Glyn Maxwell in The Sugar Mile, embraces dramatic analogue and metaphor as a means to address the horror of 9/11. All of the poets examined in the thesis are using metaphor to render the incomprehensible comprehensible.
Part II of the thesis consists of my own poems.The sound of laughter in Romantic poetryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6814
This thesis offers the first critical examination of the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry. Part one locates laughter in the history of ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and explores the interplay between laughter and key intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, and social issues in the Romantic period. I chart a development in thinking about laughter from its primary association with ridicule and the passions up to the early decades of the eighteenth century, to its emerging symbiosis with politeness and aesthetic judgement, before a reassertion of laughter’s signification of passion and naturalness by the end of the eighteenth century. Laughter provides an innovative means of mapping cultural markers, and I argue that it highlights shifts in standards and questions of taste. Informed by this analysis, part two offers a series of historically aware close readings of Romantic poetry that identify both an indebtedness to, and refutation of, earlier and contemporaneous ideas about laughter. Rather than having humour or comedy as its central concerns, this thesis identifies the pervasive and capricious influence of the sound of the laugh in the writing of Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. I detect the heterogeneous representations of laughter in their work that runs across a diverse range of genres, poetic forms, themes, and contexts. As such, I argue against the serious versus the humorous binary which prevails in literary criticism of Romanticism, and suggest that laughter articulates the interplay between the elegiac and the comic, the sublime and the ridiculous, the solitary and the communal. Moreover, I detect a double-naturedness to the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry that registers the subject’s capacity to signify both consensus and dispute. This inherent polarity creates a tension in the poems as laughter ironically challenges what it also affirms. Never singularly fixed, the sound of laughter reveals the protean nature of Romantic verse.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZWard, MatthewThis thesis offers the first critical examination of the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry. Part one locates laughter in the history of ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and explores the interplay between laughter and key intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, and social issues in the Romantic period. I chart a development in thinking about laughter from its primary association with ridicule and the passions up to the early decades of the eighteenth century, to its emerging symbiosis with politeness and aesthetic judgement, before a reassertion of laughter’s signification of passion and naturalness by the end of the eighteenth century. Laughter provides an innovative means of mapping cultural markers, and I argue that it highlights shifts in standards and questions of taste. Informed by this analysis, part two offers a series of historically aware close readings of Romantic poetry that identify both an indebtedness to, and refutation of, earlier and contemporaneous ideas about laughter. Rather than having humour or comedy as its central concerns, this thesis identifies the pervasive and capricious influence of the sound of the laugh in the writing of Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. I detect the heterogeneous representations of laughter in their work that runs across a diverse range of genres, poetic forms, themes, and contexts. As such, I argue against the serious versus the humorous binary which prevails in literary criticism of Romanticism, and suggest that laughter articulates the interplay between the elegiac and the comic, the sublime and the ridiculous, the solitary and the communal. Moreover, I detect a double-naturedness to the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry that registers the subject’s capacity to signify both consensus and dispute. This inherent polarity creates a tension in the poems as laughter ironically challenges what it also affirms. Never singularly fixed, the sound of laughter reveals the protean nature of Romantic verse.Representations of adultery and regeneration in selected novels of Ford, Lawrence, Waugh and Greenehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6723
This thesis is an examination of how the themes of adultery and regeneration are interwoven and explored by selected English novelists in the first half of the twentieth century. It is essential to establish that Ford, Lawrence, Waugh and Greene do not adhere to the ‘archetypal’ pattern of the adultery novel established in the nineteenth century and, in fact, turn that pattern on its head.
Ford’s The Good Soldier and Parade’s End provide two differing perspectives. The first uses adultery as a metaphor for the disintegration of English society, mirroring the social disintegration that accompanied the First World War; Parade’s End, however, presents an adulterous relationship as being a regenerative force in the post-war society. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover also uses an adulterous relationship as a means of addressing the need for social, and national, regeneration in the inter-war years.
Waugh’s A Handful of Dust presents a woman’s adultery as the ruin of not only a good man, but also civilisation in general; Brideshead Revisited is more religious in tone and traces the spiritual regeneration of its central character, whose conversion, ironically, is made possible through his adulterous relationship. Similarly, Greene’s The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair portray the process of spiritual regeneration; in both novels this movement towards salvation is intertwined with an exploration of adulterous love.
The ultimate question probed in this thesis is how the twentieth century novel of adultery overturns the traditional literary approach to the subject. Adulterous unions and illegitimate children are no longer presented as being exclusively socially destabilising or subversive in these novels; most intriguingly significant is that, in some of these novels, the illegitimate child becomes a symbol of hope, and, indeed, of regeneration.
2002-01-01T00:00:00ZBratten, Joanna K.This thesis is an examination of how the themes of adultery and regeneration are interwoven and explored by selected English novelists in the first half of the twentieth century. It is essential to establish that Ford, Lawrence, Waugh and Greene do not adhere to the ‘archetypal’ pattern of the adultery novel established in the nineteenth century and, in fact, turn that pattern on its head.
Ford’s The Good Soldier and Parade’s End provide two differing perspectives. The first uses adultery as a metaphor for the disintegration of English society, mirroring the social disintegration that accompanied the First World War; Parade’s End, however, presents an adulterous relationship as being a regenerative force in the post-war society. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover also uses an adulterous relationship as a means of addressing the need for social, and national, regeneration in the inter-war years.
Waugh’s A Handful of Dust presents a woman’s adultery as the ruin of not only a good man, but also civilisation in general; Brideshead Revisited is more religious in tone and traces the spiritual regeneration of its central character, whose conversion, ironically, is made possible through his adulterous relationship. Similarly, Greene’s The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair portray the process of spiritual regeneration; in both novels this movement towards salvation is intertwined with an exploration of adulterous love.
The ultimate question probed in this thesis is how the twentieth century novel of adultery overturns the traditional literary approach to the subject. Adulterous unions and illegitimate children are no longer presented as being exclusively socially destabilising or subversive in these novels; most intriguingly significant is that, in some of these novels, the illegitimate child becomes a symbol of hope, and, indeed, of regeneration.Challenging maleness : the new woman's attempts to reconstruct the binary codehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6612
This thesis explores the construction of masculinity in novels written by New Women
authors between the years 1881-1899. The fin de siècle was a period during which gender roles were renegotiated with fervour by both male and female authors, but it was the so-called New Woman in particular who was trying to transform the Victorian notion of femininity to incorporate the demands of the burgeoning women’s movement. This thesis argues that in their fiction, New Women authors often tried to achieve this
transformation by creating male characters who were designed to justify and to mitigate
the New Woman protagonist’s departure from traditional structures of heterosexual
relationships. The methodology underlying this thesis is the notion that men and women were perceived as binary opposites during the Victorian period. I refer to this as the binary code of the sexes. This code assumes that men and women naturally possess
diametrically opposed character attributes, and also that “masculine” attributes are
perforce better than “feminine” ones. In the body of this work, I argue that New Women
authors attempted to contest both of these assumptions by creating, on the one hand,
traditional male characters whose masculinity is corrupted in crucial and recurring ways, and on the other, impaired male characters who cannot assume the traditional role of man. The comparison of the New Woman protagonist with the corrupt traditional man elevates her feminine attributes, while the impaired man’s dependency legitimises her acquisition of what were otherwise considered “masculine” attributes and privileges, thereby contesting the notion that men and women possess sex-specific attributes at all.
The second part of my thesis examines contrasting examples, in which this way
of characterising masculinity – as traditional or impaired – is questioned and
manipulated. It examines the limitations of the New Women authors’ specific approach
to reconstructing the binary code.
2014-10-01T00:00:00ZGötting, Elena RebekkaThis thesis explores the construction of masculinity in novels written by New Women
authors between the years 1881-1899. The fin de siècle was a period during which gender roles were renegotiated with fervour by both male and female authors, but it was the so-called New Woman in particular who was trying to transform the Victorian notion of femininity to incorporate the demands of the burgeoning women’s movement. This thesis argues that in their fiction, New Women authors often tried to achieve this
transformation by creating male characters who were designed to justify and to mitigate
the New Woman protagonist’s departure from traditional structures of heterosexual
relationships. The methodology underlying this thesis is the notion that men and women were perceived as binary opposites during the Victorian period. I refer to this as the binary code of the sexes. This code assumes that men and women naturally possess
diametrically opposed character attributes, and also that “masculine” attributes are
perforce better than “feminine” ones. In the body of this work, I argue that New Women
authors attempted to contest both of these assumptions by creating, on the one hand,
traditional male characters whose masculinity is corrupted in crucial and recurring ways, and on the other, impaired male characters who cannot assume the traditional role of man. The comparison of the New Woman protagonist with the corrupt traditional man elevates her feminine attributes, while the impaired man’s dependency legitimises her acquisition of what were otherwise considered “masculine” attributes and privileges, thereby contesting the notion that men and women possess sex-specific attributes at all.
The second part of my thesis examines contrasting examples, in which this way
of characterising masculinity – as traditional or impaired – is questioned and
manipulated. It examines the limitations of the New Women authors’ specific approach
to reconstructing the binary code.Wordsworth and deathhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6459
Wordsworth is known as the poet of joy and hope, and to associate his name with death may seem at first strange. Yet, according to his own estimation, he was the poet not simply of joy but of “the very heart of man," of "human kind, and what we are”, of "men as they are men within themselves." Any vision of human nature which does not take into account the facts of mortality and bereavement is blinkered and inevitably inadequate and Wordsworth was committed to clarity of perception and the fullest insights of the Imagination. He did not shy away from the implications of “our mortal Nature”; throughout his career, he sought to portray in poetry the place of death in human life.
Two basic ways of understanding mortality are considered in this thesis: the first is death as disjunction, extinction, the end; the second is death as part of a larger continuity, a threshold, a stage. The conflict between these two visions was fundamental to Wordsworth's thought, and writing. Isolation and despair were the corollaries of the first vision, while the capacity for love and hope which was essential to the life of the human spirit was nurtured and made possible by the second. Wordsworth wrestled in his writings with the effects of these different visions of death on the complexities of human nature.
The thesis has been divided into three main parts. Section I - Death in Wordsworth's Time - seeks to place the poet into a historical context. Section II - Death in Wordsworth' Life - is concerned with Wordsworth's personal experiences of loss and feelings about his own mortality, And in Section III - Death in Wordsworth's Poetry - what he had to say about death is considered in relation to some of the other major themes in his poetry.
1985-01-01T00:00:00ZLennon, JoanWordsworth is known as the poet of joy and hope, and to associate his name with death may seem at first strange. Yet, according to his own estimation, he was the poet not simply of joy but of “the very heart of man," of "human kind, and what we are”, of "men as they are men within themselves." Any vision of human nature which does not take into account the facts of mortality and bereavement is blinkered and inevitably inadequate and Wordsworth was committed to clarity of perception and the fullest insights of the Imagination. He did not shy away from the implications of “our mortal Nature”; throughout his career, he sought to portray in poetry the place of death in human life.
Two basic ways of understanding mortality are considered in this thesis: the first is death as disjunction, extinction, the end; the second is death as part of a larger continuity, a threshold, a stage. The conflict between these two visions was fundamental to Wordsworth's thought, and writing. Isolation and despair were the corollaries of the first vision, while the capacity for love and hope which was essential to the life of the human spirit was nurtured and made possible by the second. Wordsworth wrestled in his writings with the effects of these different visions of death on the complexities of human nature.
The thesis has been divided into three main parts. Section I - Death in Wordsworth's Time - seeks to place the poet into a historical context. Section II - Death in Wordsworth' Life - is concerned with Wordsworth's personal experiences of loss and feelings about his own mortality, And in Section III - Death in Wordsworth's Poetry - what he had to say about death is considered in relation to some of the other major themes in his poetry.A modern Wessex of the penny post’ : letters and the post in Thomas Hardy’s novelshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6393
This thesis examines the use and representation of letters (and other written messages) in Thomas Hardy’s novels, and it considers how Hardy’s writing engages with Victorian communication technologies.
The 1895 Preface to Far from the Madding Crowd describes Hardy’s fictional setting as a ‘a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National school children’. The penny post, a communication revolution with an enormous social, economic, and cultural impact, was introduced on 10 January 1840, just a few months before Hardy was born. This thesis aims to demonstrate how a consideration of the material, technological and cultural conditions of communication in Victorian England might reshape our understanding of Hardy’s novels, especially of the countless letters, notes, and telegrams which permeate his texts.
The written messages in Hardy’s novels serve as a means for exploring the process of human communication, and the way this process shapes individual identity, interpersonal relationships, and social interactions alike. Chapter I of this thesis relates Hardy’s portrayal of letters to the historical transition from oral tradition to written culture. Chapter II enquires into the relationship between letter writing and notions of privacy and publicity in Hardy’s novels. Chapters III and IV argue that Hardy uses letters so as to give a strikingly modern complexity to his representation of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The two final chapters investigate how the modalities and technological conditions of written communication influence the construction of Hardy’s narratives, the design of his plots. Taken together, the six chapters examine Hardy’s perception of one of the most fundamental human activities: communication.
2015-06-01T00:00:00ZKoehler, KarinThis thesis examines the use and representation of letters (and other written messages) in Thomas Hardy’s novels, and it considers how Hardy’s writing engages with Victorian communication technologies.
The 1895 Preface to Far from the Madding Crowd describes Hardy’s fictional setting as a ‘a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National school children’. The penny post, a communication revolution with an enormous social, economic, and cultural impact, was introduced on 10 January 1840, just a few months before Hardy was born. This thesis aims to demonstrate how a consideration of the material, technological and cultural conditions of communication in Victorian England might reshape our understanding of Hardy’s novels, especially of the countless letters, notes, and telegrams which permeate his texts.
The written messages in Hardy’s novels serve as a means for exploring the process of human communication, and the way this process shapes individual identity, interpersonal relationships, and social interactions alike. Chapter I of this thesis relates Hardy’s portrayal of letters to the historical transition from oral tradition to written culture. Chapter II enquires into the relationship between letter writing and notions of privacy and publicity in Hardy’s novels. Chapters III and IV argue that Hardy uses letters so as to give a strikingly modern complexity to his representation of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The two final chapters investigate how the modalities and technological conditions of written communication influence the construction of Hardy’s narratives, the design of his plots. Taken together, the six chapters examine Hardy’s perception of one of the most fundamental human activities: communication.'Fairy' in Middle English romancehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6388
This thesis, ‘Fairy in Middle English romance’, aims to contribute to the recent resurgence of interest in the literary medieval supernatural by studying the concept of ‘fairy’ as it is presented in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English romances. This thesis is particularly interested in how the use of ‘fairy’ in Middle English romances serves as an arena in which to play out ‘thought-experiments’ that test anxieties about faith, gender, power, and death.
The first chapter considers the concept of fairy in its medieval Christian context by using the romance Melusine as a case study to examine fairies alongside medieval theological explorations of the nature of demons. The thesis then examines the power dynamic of fairy/human relationships and the extent to which having one partner be a fairy affects these explorations of medieval attitudes toward gender relations and hierarchy. The third chapter investigates ‘fairy-like’ women enchantresses in romance and the extent to which fairy is ‘performed’ in romance. The fourth chapter explores the location of Faerie and how it relates as an alternative ‘Otherworld’ to the Christian Otherworlds of Paradise, Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell. The final chapter continues to examine geography by considering the application of Avalon and whether Avalon can be read as a ‘land of fairies’.
By considering the etymological, spiritual, and gendered definitions of ‘fairy’, my research reveals medieval attitudes toward not only the Otherworld, but also the contemporary medieval world. In doing so, this thesis provides new readings of little-studied medieval texts, such as the Middle English Melusine and Eger and Grime, as well as reconsider the presence of religious material and gender dynamics in medieval romance. This thesis demonstrates that by examining how fairy was used in Middle English romance, we can see how medieval authors were describing their present reality.
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZCole, Chera A.This thesis, ‘Fairy in Middle English romance’, aims to contribute to the recent resurgence of interest in the literary medieval supernatural by studying the concept of ‘fairy’ as it is presented in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English romances. This thesis is particularly interested in how the use of ‘fairy’ in Middle English romances serves as an arena in which to play out ‘thought-experiments’ that test anxieties about faith, gender, power, and death.
The first chapter considers the concept of fairy in its medieval Christian context by using the romance Melusine as a case study to examine fairies alongside medieval theological explorations of the nature of demons. The thesis then examines the power dynamic of fairy/human relationships and the extent to which having one partner be a fairy affects these explorations of medieval attitudes toward gender relations and hierarchy. The third chapter investigates ‘fairy-like’ women enchantresses in romance and the extent to which fairy is ‘performed’ in romance. The fourth chapter explores the location of Faerie and how it relates as an alternative ‘Otherworld’ to the Christian Otherworlds of Paradise, Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell. The final chapter continues to examine geography by considering the application of Avalon and whether Avalon can be read as a ‘land of fairies’.
By considering the etymological, spiritual, and gendered definitions of ‘fairy’, my research reveals medieval attitudes toward not only the Otherworld, but also the contemporary medieval world. In doing so, this thesis provides new readings of little-studied medieval texts, such as the Middle English Melusine and Eger and Grime, as well as reconsider the presence of religious material and gender dynamics in medieval romance. This thesis demonstrates that by examining how fairy was used in Middle English romance, we can see how medieval authors were describing their present reality.Death in Anglo-Saxon hagiography : approaches, attitudes, aestheticshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6352
This thesis examines attitudes and approaches towards death, as well as aesthetic representations of death, in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. The thesis contributes to the discussion of the historical and intellectual contexts of hagiography and considers how saintly death-scenes are represented to form commentaries on exemplary behaviour. A comprehensive survey of death-scenes in Anglo-Saxon hagiography has been undertaken, charting typical and atypical motifs used in literary manifestations of both martyrdom and non-violent death. The clusters of literary motifs found in these texts and what their use suggests about attitudes to exemplary death is analysed in an exploration of whether Anglo-Saxon hagiography presents a consistent aesthetic of death. The thesis also considers how modern scholarly fields such as thanatology can provide fresh discourses on the attitudes to and depictions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deaths. Moreover, the thesis addresses the intersection of the hagiographic inheritance with discernibly Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards death and dying, and investigates whether or not the deaths of native Anglo-Saxon saints are presented differently compared with the deaths of universal saints. The thesis explores continuities and discontinuities in the presentations of physical and spiritual death, and assesses whether or not differences exist in the depiction of death-scenes based on an author’s personal agenda, choice of terminology, approaches towards the body–soul dichotomy, or the gender of his or her subject, for example. Furthermore, the thesis investigates how hagiographic representations of death compare with portrayals in other literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whether any non-hagiographic paradigms provide alternative exemplars of the ‘good death’. The thesis also assesses gendered portrayals of death, the portrayal of last words in saints’ lives, and the various motifs relating to the soul at the moment of death. The thesis contains a Motif Index of saintly death-scenes as Appendix I.
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZKey, Jennifer SelinaThis thesis examines attitudes and approaches towards death, as well as aesthetic representations of death, in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. The thesis contributes to the discussion of the historical and intellectual contexts of hagiography and considers how saintly death-scenes are represented to form commentaries on exemplary behaviour. A comprehensive survey of death-scenes in Anglo-Saxon hagiography has been undertaken, charting typical and atypical motifs used in literary manifestations of both martyrdom and non-violent death. The clusters of literary motifs found in these texts and what their use suggests about attitudes to exemplary death is analysed in an exploration of whether Anglo-Saxon hagiography presents a consistent aesthetic of death. The thesis also considers how modern scholarly fields such as thanatology can provide fresh discourses on the attitudes to and depictions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deaths. Moreover, the thesis addresses the intersection of the hagiographic inheritance with discernibly Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards death and dying, and investigates whether or not the deaths of native Anglo-Saxon saints are presented differently compared with the deaths of universal saints. The thesis explores continuities and discontinuities in the presentations of physical and spiritual death, and assesses whether or not differences exist in the depiction of death-scenes based on an author’s personal agenda, choice of terminology, approaches towards the body–soul dichotomy, or the gender of his or her subject, for example. Furthermore, the thesis investigates how hagiographic representations of death compare with portrayals in other literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whether any non-hagiographic paradigms provide alternative exemplars of the ‘good death’. The thesis also assesses gendered portrayals of death, the portrayal of last words in saints’ lives, and the various motifs relating to the soul at the moment of death. The thesis contains a Motif Index of saintly death-scenes as Appendix I.From Memnon to Gangnam : a diachronic study of the interaction of technology with oral, written and music-based poetrieshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6347
Since the advent of capture technologies poets have advanced, through their experimental practice, an expanded understanding of what constitutes a text to incorporate not only its content, but also its construction. Reframed by morphological and mechanical perspectives, our changing relationship with sound and image was constituent to a cumulative process of artistic abstraction that would, in time, come to define modernity. By highlighting the importance of technologies such as telegraphy and electricity in the conception of poetry as a connecting force, of photography and cinema in the recalibration of our perceptions of subject and object, and of gramophony, radio, television and computing technologies as key agents in a process of naturalization regarding the relationship between poetry and its audience, this thesis will attempt to illustrate the progression of technology-led abstraction in oral, written and music based poetries from the beginning of the industrial age to the present day. Our relationship with the communication technologies we invent has become increasingly interwoven with the epistemological structures such mechanisms advance. This thesis will propose that as a consequence, the ways we organise and remediate texts, sounds and images into new, creative contexts that utilize the mass communication technologies and distribution networks of our modern experience positions electronic music, rap, digital memes and other interdisciplinary modes of digital expression as significant poetic forms. Our day-to-day engagement with diverse media allows us to reconfigure all our manifestations of self and any examination of mass media’s impact on poetic expression must likewise constitute a reading of both literary and popular materials. To this end, this thesis will consider the progressive technologization of our engagement with oral, written and music-based poetries that media technologies facilitate within the context of the praxis of prominent poets, their literary theories and those of the literary movements they endorsed.
2014-01-24T00:00:00ZRodgers, Sarah AnneSince the advent of capture technologies poets have advanced, through their experimental practice, an expanded understanding of what constitutes a text to incorporate not only its content, but also its construction. Reframed by morphological and mechanical perspectives, our changing relationship with sound and image was constituent to a cumulative process of artistic abstraction that would, in time, come to define modernity. By highlighting the importance of technologies such as telegraphy and electricity in the conception of poetry as a connecting force, of photography and cinema in the recalibration of our perceptions of subject and object, and of gramophony, radio, television and computing technologies as key agents in a process of naturalization regarding the relationship between poetry and its audience, this thesis will attempt to illustrate the progression of technology-led abstraction in oral, written and music based poetries from the beginning of the industrial age to the present day. Our relationship with the communication technologies we invent has become increasingly interwoven with the epistemological structures such mechanisms advance. This thesis will propose that as a consequence, the ways we organise and remediate texts, sounds and images into new, creative contexts that utilize the mass communication technologies and distribution networks of our modern experience positions electronic music, rap, digital memes and other interdisciplinary modes of digital expression as significant poetic forms. Our day-to-day engagement with diverse media allows us to reconfigure all our manifestations of self and any examination of mass media’s impact on poetic expression must likewise constitute a reading of both literary and popular materials. To this end, this thesis will consider the progressive technologization of our engagement with oral, written and music-based poetries that media technologies facilitate within the context of the praxis of prominent poets, their literary theories and those of the literary movements they endorsed.Casos de honra : honouring clandestine contracts and Italian novelle in early modern English and Spanish dramahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6318
This thesis argues that the popularity of the clandestine marriage plot in English and Spanish drama following the Reformation corresponds closely to developments and emerging conflicts in European matrimonial law. My title, ‘casos de honra,’ or ‘honour cases’, unites law and drama in a way that captures this argument. Taken from the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega’s El arte nuevo (1609), a treatise on his dramatic practice, the phrase has been understood as a description of the honour plots so common in Spanish Golden Age drama, but ‘casos’ [cases] has a further, and related, legal meaning. Casos de honra are cases touching honour, whether portrayed on stage or at law, a European rather than a strictly Spanish phenomenon, and clandestine marriages are one such example. I trace the genealogy of three casos de honra from their recognisable origins in Italian novelle, through Italian, French, Spanish, and English adaptations, until their final early modern manifestations on the English and Spanish stage. Their seeming differences, and often radical divergences in plot can be explained with reference to their distinct, but related, legal concerns.
2014-05-15T00:00:00ZHolmes, Rachel E.This thesis argues that the popularity of the clandestine marriage plot in English and Spanish drama following the Reformation corresponds closely to developments and emerging conflicts in European matrimonial law. My title, ‘casos de honra,’ or ‘honour cases’, unites law and drama in a way that captures this argument. Taken from the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega’s El arte nuevo (1609), a treatise on his dramatic practice, the phrase has been understood as a description of the honour plots so common in Spanish Golden Age drama, but ‘casos’ [cases] has a further, and related, legal meaning. Casos de honra are cases touching honour, whether portrayed on stage or at law, a European rather than a strictly Spanish phenomenon, and clandestine marriages are one such example. I trace the genealogy of three casos de honra from their recognisable origins in Italian novelle, through Italian, French, Spanish, and English adaptations, until their final early modern manifestations on the English and Spanish stage. Their seeming differences, and often radical divergences in plot can be explained with reference to their distinct, but related, legal concerns.A gestalt approach to the science fiction novels of William Gibsonhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/6263
Gestalt psychologists Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler argue that human perception relies on a form, or gestalt, into which perceptions are assimilated. Gestalt theory has been applied to the visual arts by Rudolf Arnheim and to literature by Wolfgang Iser. My original contribution to knowledge is to use gestalt theory to perform literary criticism, an approach that highlights the importance of perception in William Gibson’s novels and the impact of this emphasis on posthumanism and science fiction studies. Science fiction addresses the problem of difference and the relationship between self and other. Gestalt literary criticism takes perception as the interface between the self and the other, the human and the inhuman. Gibson’s work is of particular interest as his early novels are representative of 1980s cyberpunk while his later novels push the boundaries of science fiction through their contemporary settings. By engaging with Gibson the thesis makes its contribution to contemporary science fiction criticism explicit.
In Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy autopoiesis defines life and consciousness, elevating the importance of perception (Chapter I). The Bridge trilogy uses the metaphor of chaos theory to examine dialectic tensions, such as the tension between space and cyberspace (Chapter II). Faulty pattern recognition is a key theme in Gibson’s post-9/11 work as gestalt perception allows and limits knowledge (Chapter III). Chapter IV explains how the gestalt in psychoanalysis creates a fragmented subject in Spook Country (2007). Finally, the gestalt appears as a parallax view, a view that oscillates between the world we experience and the world as represented in the text (Chapter V). I conclude that gestalt literary criticism offers an exciting new reading of Gibson’s work that recognises its engagement with visual culture and cyberpunk as a whole.
2015-06-01T00:00:00ZMcFarlane, Anna M.Gestalt psychologists Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler argue that human perception relies on a form, or gestalt, into which perceptions are assimilated. Gestalt theory has been applied to the visual arts by Rudolf Arnheim and to literature by Wolfgang Iser. My original contribution to knowledge is to use gestalt theory to perform literary criticism, an approach that highlights the importance of perception in William Gibson’s novels and the impact of this emphasis on posthumanism and science fiction studies. Science fiction addresses the problem of difference and the relationship between self and other. Gestalt literary criticism takes perception as the interface between the self and the other, the human and the inhuman. Gibson’s work is of particular interest as his early novels are representative of 1980s cyberpunk while his later novels push the boundaries of science fiction through their contemporary settings. By engaging with Gibson the thesis makes its contribution to contemporary science fiction criticism explicit.
In Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy autopoiesis defines life and consciousness, elevating the importance of perception (Chapter I). The Bridge trilogy uses the metaphor of chaos theory to examine dialectic tensions, such as the tension between space and cyberspace (Chapter II). Faulty pattern recognition is a key theme in Gibson’s post-9/11 work as gestalt perception allows and limits knowledge (Chapter III). Chapter IV explains how the gestalt in psychoanalysis creates a fragmented subject in Spook Country (2007). Finally, the gestalt appears as a parallax view, a view that oscillates between the world we experience and the world as represented in the text (Chapter V). I conclude that gestalt literary criticism offers an exciting new reading of Gibson’s work that recognises its engagement with visual culture and cyberpunk as a whole.Religious liberty in the 'liberal', 1822-23http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5983
A survey of the negative twentieth- and twenty-first-century critical reception of the Liberal; a summary of the history of the journal and a re-evaluation of the philosophical and political coherence of the journal, focusing on its defence of religious liberty and suggesting that religious free thought is a previously overlooked component in the politics of liberalism. The criticism of doctrinal rigidity and advocacy of different forms of religious toleration evident in the four issues of the Liberal support the claim that the journal forms a lucid and intelligible cultural intervention.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZStabler, Jane SusanA survey of the negative twentieth- and twenty-first-century critical reception of the Liberal; a summary of the history of the journal and a re-evaluation of the philosophical and political coherence of the journal, focusing on its defence of religious liberty and suggesting that religious free thought is a previously overlooked component in the politics of liberalism. The criticism of doctrinal rigidity and advocacy of different forms of religious toleration evident in the four issues of the Liberal support the claim that the journal forms a lucid and intelligible cultural intervention.Landscapes in modern poetry : gardens, forests, rivers, islandshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/5910
This thesis considers a selection of modern landscape poetry from an ecocritical perspective, arguing that this poetry demonstrates how the term landscape might be re-imagined in relation to contemporary environmental concerns. Each chapter discusses poetic responses to a different kind of landscape: gardens, forests, rivers and islands. Chapter One explores how, in the poetry of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Douglas Dunn, Louise Glück and David Harsent, gardens are culturally constructed landscapes in which ideas of self, society and environment are contemplated; I ask whether gardening provides a positive example of how people might interact with the natural world. My second chapter demonstrates that for Sorley MacLean, W.S. Merwin, Susan Stewart and Kathleen Jamie, forests are sites of memory and sustainable ‘dwelling’, but that deforestation threatens both the ecology and the culture of these landscapes. Chapter Three compares river poems by Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald, considering their differing approaches to river sources, mystical immersion in nature, water pollution and poetic experimentation; I discuss how in W.S. Graham’s poetry the sea provides a complex image of the phenomenal world similar to Oswald’s river. The final chapter examines the extent to which islands in poetry are pastoral landscapes and environmental utopias, looking in particular at poems by Dunn, Robin Robertson, Iain Crichton Smith and Jen Hadfield. I reflect upon the potential for island poetry to embrace narratives of globalisation as well as localism, and situate the work of George Mackay Brown and Robert Alan Jamieson within this context.
I engage with a range of ecocritical positions in my readings of these poets and argue that the linguistic creativity, formal inventiveness and self-reflexivity of poetry constitute a distinctive contribution to contemporary understandings of landscape and the environment.
2014-12-01T00:00:00ZMacKenzie, Garry RossThis thesis considers a selection of modern landscape poetry from an ecocritical perspective, arguing that this poetry demonstrates how the term landscape might be re-imagined in relation to contemporary environmental concerns. Each chapter discusses poetic responses to a different kind of landscape: gardens, forests, rivers and islands. Chapter One explores how, in the poetry of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Douglas Dunn, Louise Glück and David Harsent, gardens are culturally constructed landscapes in which ideas of self, society and environment are contemplated; I ask whether gardening provides a positive example of how people might interact with the natural world. My second chapter demonstrates that for Sorley MacLean, W.S. Merwin, Susan Stewart and Kathleen Jamie, forests are sites of memory and sustainable ‘dwelling’, but that deforestation threatens both the ecology and the culture of these landscapes. Chapter Three compares river poems by Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald, considering their differing approaches to river sources, mystical immersion in nature, water pollution and poetic experimentation; I discuss how in W.S. Graham’s poetry the sea provides a complex image of the phenomenal world similar to Oswald’s river. The final chapter examines the extent to which islands in poetry are pastoral landscapes and environmental utopias, looking in particular at poems by Dunn, Robin Robertson, Iain Crichton Smith and Jen Hadfield. I reflect upon the potential for island poetry to embrace narratives of globalisation as well as localism, and situate the work of George Mackay Brown and Robert Alan Jamieson within this context.
I engage with a range of ecocritical positions in my readings of these poets and argue that the linguistic creativity, formal inventiveness and self-reflexivity of poetry constitute a distinctive contribution to contemporary understandings of landscape and the environment.Philosophy of the imagination : time, immanence and the events that wound us in Wilson Harris’s Jonestownhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/5661
In his fictional recreation of the People’s Temple massacre, Jonestown, Harris presents us with a protagonist who counter-actualizes the trauma that wounds him, living creatively out of the event and constructing an alternative present-future. Drawing on Deleuzian philosophy, this essay argues for a re-conceptualization of Jonestown in terms that evoke not only Deleuze’s philosophy of time and immanence but also his distinction, via Nietzsche, between active and reactive forces. By means of a character (Francisco Bone) who embraces the power of transformation, creation and difference-in-itself, Harris demonstrates the value of active forces that do not depend on external recognition or dialectical negation in order to be for a postcolonial philosophy of the imagination.
This is a special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing edited by Lorna Burns and Wendy Knepper
2013-05-03T00:00:00ZBurns, Lorna MargaretIn his fictional recreation of the People’s Temple massacre, Jonestown, Harris presents us with a protagonist who counter-actualizes the trauma that wounds him, living creatively out of the event and constructing an alternative present-future. Drawing on Deleuzian philosophy, this essay argues for a re-conceptualization of Jonestown in terms that evoke not only Deleuze’s philosophy of time and immanence but also his distinction, via Nietzsche, between active and reactive forces. By means of a character (Francisco Bone) who embraces the power of transformation, creation and difference-in-itself, Harris demonstrates the value of active forces that do not depend on external recognition or dialectical negation in order to be for a postcolonial philosophy of the imagination.Man up : a study of gendered expectations of masculinity at the 'fin de siècle'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5551
The main themes of this thesis are masculinities, fluctuations in socially constructed gender roles at the fin de siècle and how a number of cathartic issues influenced these. The strongest of these issues was the New Woman Question which, while demanding developments for women, threatened the stability of Victorian gender norms. This forced both sexes to rethink and renegotiate their positions within society. Women sought options that would free them from the vagaries of the marriage market and looked to move into a more public sphere. Many saw this as a threat to the patriarchal status quo and the debates that ensued were many and vociferous. In response to this, men had to look within and question various modes of masculinity and manliness that they had previously taken for granted and that they now viewed as under threat.
The fin de siècle was a time of major gender upheaval which, I propose, is reflected in its literature. I intend to explore the anxieties of both genders by examination of the selected texts which cover pertinent aspects of the similarities and contrasts in the way male and female authors negotiate masculinities in relation to social and gendered spaces. In this way, I hope to investigate the underlying themes which inform the novels. I aim to research reasons for disparity in approaches to gender issues, to highlight the importance of masculinities in relation to gendered positions in fin-de-siècle discourses and to show why relations between the sexes had to evolve.
2014-06-16T00:00:00ZRamday, Morna BThe main themes of this thesis are masculinities, fluctuations in socially constructed gender roles at the fin de siècle and how a number of cathartic issues influenced these. The strongest of these issues was the New Woman Question which, while demanding developments for women, threatened the stability of Victorian gender norms. This forced both sexes to rethink and renegotiate their positions within society. Women sought options that would free them from the vagaries of the marriage market and looked to move into a more public sphere. Many saw this as a threat to the patriarchal status quo and the debates that ensued were many and vociferous. In response to this, men had to look within and question various modes of masculinity and manliness that they had previously taken for granted and that they now viewed as under threat.
The fin de siècle was a time of major gender upheaval which, I propose, is reflected in its literature. I intend to explore the anxieties of both genders by examination of the selected texts which cover pertinent aspects of the similarities and contrasts in the way male and female authors negotiate masculinities in relation to social and gendered spaces. In this way, I hope to investigate the underlying themes which inform the novels. I aim to research reasons for disparity in approaches to gender issues, to highlight the importance of masculinities in relation to gendered positions in fin-de-siècle discourses and to show why relations between the sexes had to evolve.David Steuart Erskine, 11th. Earl of Buchan : a study of his life and correspondencehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/5523
[From the Prefatory note]. All the biographical accounts of David Steuart
Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, are slight, and often very
unsympathetic. Most have relied for factual information
on his obituary, published in volume 99 of The Gentleman’s
Magazine.
Malicious and distorted comments, particularly
by Sir Walter Scott, have been responsible for the growth
of a legend about Buchan’s eccentricity, although the
charge of absurd conduct was lodged against him in his
own lifetime. It is interesting to note that a tradesman in Galashiels, near Buchan’s former residence at
Dryburgh Abbey, was found to talk about Buchan’s patriotism,
but at much greater length about his oddities, as recently
as 1962.
Those who could have given posterity a fair
assessment of Buchan did not do so, and the way was left
open for those who saw him only as vain and self-seeking.
He was unlucky in living in the neighbourhood of Scott’s
house, Abbotsford, and because of this he has never had
his due, even in the Border Country where he spent almost
half his life. The cult of Scott flourishes there, but
to Buchan there is no memorial. Whereas Abbotsford is
much sought after, and is still in the possession of Scott’s
descendants, Dryburgh Abbey passed from Buchan’s family and was given to the nation. Scott would probably have been
amused had he known that the time would come when visitors
to the Abbey would seek out his grave whilst that of
Buchan goes unnoticed.
1963-01-01T00:00:00ZLamb, James Gordon[From the Prefatory note]. All the biographical accounts of David Steuart
Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, are slight, and often very
unsympathetic. Most have relied for factual information
on his obituary, published in volume 99 of The Gentleman’s
Magazine.
Malicious and distorted comments, particularly
by Sir Walter Scott, have been responsible for the growth
of a legend about Buchan’s eccentricity, although the
charge of absurd conduct was lodged against him in his
own lifetime. It is interesting to note that a tradesman in Galashiels, near Buchan’s former residence at
Dryburgh Abbey, was found to talk about Buchan’s patriotism,
but at much greater length about his oddities, as recently
as 1962.
Those who could have given posterity a fair
assessment of Buchan did not do so, and the way was left
open for those who saw him only as vain and self-seeking.
He was unlucky in living in the neighbourhood of Scott’s
house, Abbotsford, and because of this he has never had
his due, even in the Border Country where he spent almost
half his life. The cult of Scott flourishes there, but
to Buchan there is no memorial. Whereas Abbotsford is
much sought after, and is still in the possession of Scott’s
descendants, Dryburgh Abbey passed from Buchan’s family and was given to the nation. Scott would probably have been
amused had he known that the time would come when visitors
to the Abbey would seek out his grave whilst that of
Buchan goes unnoticed.Music lessons and the construction of womanhood in English fiction, 1870-1914http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5479
This thesis explores the gendered symbolism of women’s music lessons in English fiction, 1870-1914. I consider canonical and non-canonical fiction in the context of a wider discourse about music, gender and society. Traditionally, women’s music lessons were a marker of upper- and middle-class respectability. Musical ‘accomplishment’ was a means to differentiate women in the ‘marriage market’, and the music lesson itself was seen to encode a dynamic of obedient submission to male authority as a ‘rehearsal’ for married life. However, as the market for musical goods and services burgeoned, musical training also offered women the potential of an independent career. Close reading George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876) and Jessie Fothergill’s The First Violin (1877), I discuss four young women who negotiate their marital and vocational choices through their interactions with powerful music teachers. Through the lens of the music lessons in Emma Marshall’s Alma (1888) and Israel Zangwill’s Merely Mary Ann (1893), I consider the issues of class, respectability and social emulation, paying particular attention to the relationship between aesthetic taste and moral values. I continue by considering George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1894) alongside Elizabeth Godfrey’s Cornish Diamonds (1895), texts in which female pupils exhibit genuine power, eventually eclipsing both their music teachers and the artist-suitors for whom they once modelled. My final chapter discusses three texts which problematize the power of women’s musical performance through depicting female music pupils as ‘New Women’ in conflict with the people around them: Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book (1895), D. H. Lawrence’s The Trespasser (1912) and Compton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street (1913). I conclude by looking forward to representations of women’s music lessons in the modernist period and beyond, with a reading of Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Wind Blows’ (1920) as well as Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows (1956).
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZWatson, Anna ElizabethThis thesis explores the gendered symbolism of women’s music lessons in English fiction, 1870-1914. I consider canonical and non-canonical fiction in the context of a wider discourse about music, gender and society. Traditionally, women’s music lessons were a marker of upper- and middle-class respectability. Musical ‘accomplishment’ was a means to differentiate women in the ‘marriage market’, and the music lesson itself was seen to encode a dynamic of obedient submission to male authority as a ‘rehearsal’ for married life. However, as the market for musical goods and services burgeoned, musical training also offered women the potential of an independent career. Close reading George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876) and Jessie Fothergill’s The First Violin (1877), I discuss four young women who negotiate their marital and vocational choices through their interactions with powerful music teachers. Through the lens of the music lessons in Emma Marshall’s Alma (1888) and Israel Zangwill’s Merely Mary Ann (1893), I consider the issues of class, respectability and social emulation, paying particular attention to the relationship between aesthetic taste and moral values. I continue by considering George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1894) alongside Elizabeth Godfrey’s Cornish Diamonds (1895), texts in which female pupils exhibit genuine power, eventually eclipsing both their music teachers and the artist-suitors for whom they once modelled. My final chapter discusses three texts which problematize the power of women’s musical performance through depicting female music pupils as ‘New Women’ in conflict with the people around them: Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book (1895), D. H. Lawrence’s The Trespasser (1912) and Compton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street (1913). I conclude by looking forward to representations of women’s music lessons in the modernist period and beyond, with a reading of Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Wind Blows’ (1920) as well as Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows (1956).Authors and characters in search of the truth : a comparative study of Pirandello's 'Right you are (if you think so!)' and Pinter's 'The collection'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5347
According to some distinguished scholars, Pinter’s ‘The Collection’ and Pirandello’s ‘Right You Are (If You Think So!)’ display some similarities in the themes treated, mainly regarding the topic of the unverifiability of the truth. Far from being the proof of a supposed “philosophical” attitude shared by the two authors, the affinity between the two plays needs to be demonstrated through the more reliable criteria of a textual analysis. Thanks to this kind of examination, I have discovered that the resemblance concerning the main topic is accompanied not only by the occurrence of further common themes – i.e. attitude towards female characters and strong criticism of conventional social codes – but also by the presence of other similar elements (concerning the development of the dramatic action, the use of certain technical devices, the treatment of the characters, the exploitation – in renewed forms – of the traditional ‘well-made play’). Indeed, both playwrights have experimented with the new possibilities and the renewed expressive power of words after the collapse of the Naturalistic stage. Their main affinity in this respect is constituted by the occurrence in ‘The Collection’ and ‘Right You Are’ of a close link between a typically twentieth-century theme – truth – and a modern – though in different ways and degrees – use of linguistic/dramatic means: undeniably, it is the combination of these two elements that delimits the common ground. This similarity finds its most suitable expression in the farcical forms of tragicomedy: both ‘Right You Are’ and ‘The Collection’ are parodies of ‘pieces ben faite’, grotesque disguises of the nineteenth-century ‘comedy of manners’. That is the reason why the elements of analogy occurring also in other Pirandellian and Pinteresque plays appear particularly well defined in these two, which therefore might be considered emblematic of modern sensibility in art and culture. Significantly, similarities, especially concerning themes, crop up throughout the two authors’ major works as well as in their literary theories; yet it is through the similar dramatic structure, the similar plot and the parallel characters of these particular plays that they appear more clearly. The resemblance is too strong to be casual and, although there is no way to affirm that it proves Pirandello’s influence on Pinter, it nevertheless at least suggests the possibility of unsuspected links between different expressions of modern theatre.
1996-01-01T00:00:00ZNardiello, IreneAccording to some distinguished scholars, Pinter’s ‘The Collection’ and Pirandello’s ‘Right You Are (If You Think So!)’ display some similarities in the themes treated, mainly regarding the topic of the unverifiability of the truth. Far from being the proof of a supposed “philosophical” attitude shared by the two authors, the affinity between the two plays needs to be demonstrated through the more reliable criteria of a textual analysis. Thanks to this kind of examination, I have discovered that the resemblance concerning the main topic is accompanied not only by the occurrence of further common themes – i.e. attitude towards female characters and strong criticism of conventional social codes – but also by the presence of other similar elements (concerning the development of the dramatic action, the use of certain technical devices, the treatment of the characters, the exploitation – in renewed forms – of the traditional ‘well-made play’). Indeed, both playwrights have experimented with the new possibilities and the renewed expressive power of words after the collapse of the Naturalistic stage. Their main affinity in this respect is constituted by the occurrence in ‘The Collection’ and ‘Right You Are’ of a close link between a typically twentieth-century theme – truth – and a modern – though in different ways and degrees – use of linguistic/dramatic means: undeniably, it is the combination of these two elements that delimits the common ground. This similarity finds its most suitable expression in the farcical forms of tragicomedy: both ‘Right You Are’ and ‘The Collection’ are parodies of ‘pieces ben faite’, grotesque disguises of the nineteenth-century ‘comedy of manners’. That is the reason why the elements of analogy occurring also in other Pirandellian and Pinteresque plays appear particularly well defined in these two, which therefore might be considered emblematic of modern sensibility in art and culture. Significantly, similarities, especially concerning themes, crop up throughout the two authors’ major works as well as in their literary theories; yet it is through the similar dramatic structure, the similar plot and the parallel characters of these particular plays that they appear more clearly. The resemblance is too strong to be casual and, although there is no way to affirm that it proves Pirandello’s influence on Pinter, it nevertheless at least suggests the possibility of unsuspected links between different expressions of modern theatre.Thomas Hardy : folklore and resistancehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/5156
This thesis examines a range of folkloric customs and beliefs that play a pivotal role in Hardy’s fiction: overlooking, sympathetic magic, hag-riding, tree ‘totemism’, skimmington-riding, bonfire nights, mumming, May Day celebrations, Midsummer divination, and the ‘Portland Custom’. For each of these, it offers a background survey bringing the customs or beliefs forward in time into Victorian Dorset, and examines how they have been represented in written texts – in literature, newspapers, county histories, folklore books, the work of the Folklore Society, archival documents, and letters – in the context of Hardy’s repeated insistence on the authenticity of his own accounts of these traditions. In doing so, the thesis both explores Hardy’s work, primarily his prose fiction, as a means to understand the ‘folklore’ (a word coined in the decade of Hardy’s birth) of southwestern England, and at the same time reconsiders the novels in the light of the folkloric elements.
The thesis also argues that Hardy treats folklore in dynamic ways that open up more questions and tensions than many of his contemporaries chose to recognise. Hardy portrays folkloric custom and belief from the perspective of one who has lived and moved within ‘folk culture’, but he also distances himself (or his narrators) by commenting on folkloric material in contemporary anthropological terms that serve to destabilize a fixed (author)itative narrative voice. The interplay between the two perspectives, coupled with Hardy’s commitment to showing folk culture in flux, demonstrates his continuing resistance to what he viewed as the reductive ways of thinking about folklore adopted by prominent folklorists (and personal friends) such as Edward Clodd, Andrew Lang, and James Frazer. This thesis seeks to explore these tensions and to show how Hardy’s efforts to resist what he described as ‘excellently neat’ answers open up wider cultural questions about the nature of belief, progress, and change.
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZDillion, Jacqueline M.This thesis examines a range of folkloric customs and beliefs that play a pivotal role in Hardy’s fiction: overlooking, sympathetic magic, hag-riding, tree ‘totemism’, skimmington-riding, bonfire nights, mumming, May Day celebrations, Midsummer divination, and the ‘Portland Custom’. For each of these, it offers a background survey bringing the customs or beliefs forward in time into Victorian Dorset, and examines how they have been represented in written texts – in literature, newspapers, county histories, folklore books, the work of the Folklore Society, archival documents, and letters – in the context of Hardy’s repeated insistence on the authenticity of his own accounts of these traditions. In doing so, the thesis both explores Hardy’s work, primarily his prose fiction, as a means to understand the ‘folklore’ (a word coined in the decade of Hardy’s birth) of southwestern England, and at the same time reconsiders the novels in the light of the folkloric elements.
The thesis also argues that Hardy treats folklore in dynamic ways that open up more questions and tensions than many of his contemporaries chose to recognise. Hardy portrays folkloric custom and belief from the perspective of one who has lived and moved within ‘folk culture’, but he also distances himself (or his narrators) by commenting on folkloric material in contemporary anthropological terms that serve to destabilize a fixed (author)itative narrative voice. The interplay between the two perspectives, coupled with Hardy’s commitment to showing folk culture in flux, demonstrates his continuing resistance to what he viewed as the reductive ways of thinking about folklore adopted by prominent folklorists (and personal friends) such as Edward Clodd, Andrew Lang, and James Frazer. This thesis seeks to explore these tensions and to show how Hardy’s efforts to resist what he described as ‘excellently neat’ answers open up wider cultural questions about the nature of belief, progress, and change.To move, to please, and to teach : the new poetry and the new music, and the works of Edmund Spenser and John Milton, 1579 - 1674http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5034
By examining Renaissance criticism both literary and musical, framed in the context of the contemporaneous obsession with the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Horace, among others, this thesis identifies the parallels in poetic and musical practices of the time that coalesce to form a unified idea about the poet-as-singer, and his role in society. Edmund Spenser and John Milton, who both, in various ways, lived in periods of upheaval, identified themselves as the poet-singer, and comprehending their poetry in the context of this idea is essential to a fuller appreciation thereof.
The first chapter addresses the role that the study of rhetoric and the power of oratory played in shaping attitudes about poetry, and how the importance of sound, of an innate musicality to poetry, was pivotal in the turn from quantitative to accentual-syllabic verse. In addition, the philosophical idea of music, inherited from antiquity, is explained in order elucidate the significance of “artifice” and “proportion”.
With this as a backdrop, the chapters following examine first the work of Spenser, and then of Milton, demonstrating the central role that music played in the composition of their verse. Also significant, in the case of Milton, is the revolution undertaken by the Florentine Camerata around the turn of the seventeenth century, which culminated in the birth of opera. The sources employed by this group of scholars and artists are identical to those which shaped the idea of the poet-as-singer, and analysing their works in tandem yields new insights into those poems which are considered among the finest achievements in English literature.
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZBrooks, Scott A.By examining Renaissance criticism both literary and musical, framed in the context of the contemporaneous obsession with the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Horace, among others, this thesis identifies the parallels in poetic and musical practices of the time that coalesce to form a unified idea about the poet-as-singer, and his role in society. Edmund Spenser and John Milton, who both, in various ways, lived in periods of upheaval, identified themselves as the poet-singer, and comprehending their poetry in the context of this idea is essential to a fuller appreciation thereof.
The first chapter addresses the role that the study of rhetoric and the power of oratory played in shaping attitudes about poetry, and how the importance of sound, of an innate musicality to poetry, was pivotal in the turn from quantitative to accentual-syllabic verse. In addition, the philosophical idea of music, inherited from antiquity, is explained in order elucidate the significance of “artifice” and “proportion”.
With this as a backdrop, the chapters following examine first the work of Spenser, and then of Milton, demonstrating the central role that music played in the composition of their verse. Also significant, in the case of Milton, is the revolution undertaken by the Florentine Camerata around the turn of the seventeenth century, which culminated in the birth of opera. The sources employed by this group of scholars and artists are identical to those which shaped the idea of the poet-as-singer, and analysing their works in tandem yields new insights into those poems which are considered among the finest achievements in English literature.Speaking the unnameable : A phenomenology of sense in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartetshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4681
Through its ostensibly philosophical rhetoric and multiple allusions, Four Quartets manifests a continuity between Eliot’s poetic thought and his early engagement with philosophy. The thematic core of this continuity is Eliot’s concern with the meaningful experience of reality, described as equally dependent on direct perception and on linguistic structure: language shapes perception into a meaningful world-vision, while experience itself is an ongoing process of interpreting (or signifying) that which is perceived. This link empowers poetic language, entangling the reading consciousness in a process to which Husserl’s descriptions of consciousness refer as “sense-giving.” Four Quartets epitomizes both the phenomenological description and the poetic enactment of meaningful experience. Its opening movement both mimics the structure of experienced reality and keeps the reading eye in the process of making sense in its full complexity, involving all faculties of apprehending reality, from the metaphysical logo-centric systems underlying conceptual understanding of the world to the direct sensuous perception of immediate environment.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZLevina, JurateThrough its ostensibly philosophical rhetoric and multiple allusions, Four Quartets manifests a continuity between Eliot’s poetic thought and his early engagement with philosophy. The thematic core of this continuity is Eliot’s concern with the meaningful experience of reality, described as equally dependent on direct perception and on linguistic structure: language shapes perception into a meaningful world-vision, while experience itself is an ongoing process of interpreting (or signifying) that which is perceived. This link empowers poetic language, entangling the reading consciousness in a process to which Husserl’s descriptions of consciousness refer as “sense-giving.” Four Quartets epitomizes both the phenomenological description and the poetic enactment of meaningful experience. Its opening movement both mimics the structure of experienced reality and keeps the reading eye in the process of making sense in its full complexity, involving all faculties of apprehending reality, from the metaphysical logo-centric systems underlying conceptual understanding of the world to the direct sensuous perception of immediate environment.Women and sexuality in Hardyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4645
The work is a study of Thomas Hardy's novels and
women. The focus centres upon five major Wessex novels and
Hardy's treatment of female sexuality .
An examination of early difficulties of style and
characterisation is followed by textual analysis of the
more complex structures and discourses developed by Hardy
as, with increasing confidence and enhanced reputation the
poetic voice successfully accommodates itself to a prose
medium. Contemporary sexual ideologies - those to which
Hardy was daily exposed through the vociferous medium of
periodicals and journals - are drawn into the study. It is
argued that Hardy was engaged with contemporary social
issues, that the historical process enters into his fiction
to shape both characterisation and event, and that
contemporary dialogues upon the 'Woman Question' inform his
characterisations.
The argument is that Hardy was not a feminist as
nineteenth century liberal feminism is understood. It is
maintained that he developed a broader vision, which,
augmented by both the eclecticism of his readings and his
own keen perceptions, ranged beyond nineteenth century
liberal feminist ideologies.
1982-01-01T00:00:00ZMorgan, Rosemarie A. L.The work is a study of Thomas Hardy's novels and
women. The focus centres upon five major Wessex novels and
Hardy's treatment of female sexuality .
An examination of early difficulties of style and
characterisation is followed by textual analysis of the
more complex structures and discourses developed by Hardy
as, with increasing confidence and enhanced reputation the
poetic voice successfully accommodates itself to a prose
medium. Contemporary sexual ideologies - those to which
Hardy was daily exposed through the vociferous medium of
periodicals and journals - are drawn into the study. It is
argued that Hardy was engaged with contemporary social
issues, that the historical process enters into his fiction
to shape both characterisation and event, and that
contemporary dialogues upon the 'Woman Question' inform his
characterisations.
The argument is that Hardy was not a feminist as
nineteenth century liberal feminism is understood. It is
maintained that he developed a broader vision, which,
augmented by both the eclecticism of his readings and his
own keen perceptions, ranged beyond nineteenth century
liberal feminist ideologies.An English lecturer, a palliative care practitioner, and an absent poet have a confabulationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4606
The possibilities for developing the poet Douglas Dunn’s archive (which includes the drafts and manuscripts for his collection Elegies, dealing with the terminal illness and death of the poet’s wife from cancer) for therapeutic benefit are explored by an English lecturer (C.J.) and a palliative care practitioner (C.M.). This has led us to explore the potential benefit of this resource for health practitioners working with those affected by cancer and other life-limiting conditions. This article offers a “written conversation” (an acknowledged oxymoron of genre) about working with the themes of death and loss: a conversation which includes Douglas Dunn, who was not actually there. We reflect on the value of this “confabulation” as methodological inquiry, and its potential influence on practice. Thus, an example of “creative writing” (the confabulation) becomes a piece of research into methodology regarding the use of “creative writing” resources (the poetry archive) in palliative health care.
2014-07-09T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisMacpherson, CatrionaThe possibilities for developing the poet Douglas Dunn’s archive (which includes the drafts and manuscripts for his collection Elegies, dealing with the terminal illness and death of the poet’s wife from cancer) for therapeutic benefit are explored by an English lecturer (C.J.) and a palliative care practitioner (C.M.). This has led us to explore the potential benefit of this resource for health practitioners working with those affected by cancer and other life-limiting conditions. This article offers a “written conversation” (an acknowledged oxymoron of genre) about working with the themes of death and loss: a conversation which includes Douglas Dunn, who was not actually there. We reflect on the value of this “confabulation” as methodological inquiry, and its potential influence on practice. Thus, an example of “creative writing” (the confabulation) becomes a piece of research into methodology regarding the use of “creative writing” resources (the poetry archive) in palliative health care.George MacDonald's fairy tales in the Scottish Romantic traditionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4460
George MacDonald (1824-1905) is one of the most complex and significant Scottish
writers of the nineteenth century, especially as a writer of children’s fiction and literary
fairy tales. His works, however, have seldom been studied as Scottish literature. This
dissertation is the first full-length analysis of his writings for children in their Scottish
context, focusing particularly on his use of Scottish folklore in his literary fairy tales.
MacDonald wrote in the Scottish Romantic tradition of Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and
James Hogg; by close reading his works alongside similar texts by his compatriots, such
as Andrew Lang, MacDonald’s own idiosyncratic contribution to that tradition becomes
more apparent. His profound knowledge of and appreciation for Christian mysticism is
in evidence throughout his work; his use of folklore was directly informed by his
exploration of mystical ideas. Hogg is recast as a second Dante, and ‘bogey tales’
become catalysts for spiritual awakening. MacDonald’s fairy tales deal sensitively and
profoundly with the theme of child death, a tragedy that held personal significance for
him, and can thus be read as his attempt to come to terms with the reality of
bereavement by using Scottish folklore to explain it in mystical terms. Traditional
figures such as Thomas Rhymer, visionary poets, and doubles appear in his fairy tales as
guides and pilgrims out of the material world toward mystical union with the Divine.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZPazdziora, John PatrickGeorge MacDonald (1824-1905) is one of the most complex and significant Scottish
writers of the nineteenth century, especially as a writer of children’s fiction and literary
fairy tales. His works, however, have seldom been studied as Scottish literature. This
dissertation is the first full-length analysis of his writings for children in their Scottish
context, focusing particularly on his use of Scottish folklore in his literary fairy tales.
MacDonald wrote in the Scottish Romantic tradition of Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and
James Hogg; by close reading his works alongside similar texts by his compatriots, such
as Andrew Lang, MacDonald’s own idiosyncratic contribution to that tradition becomes
more apparent. His profound knowledge of and appreciation for Christian mysticism is
in evidence throughout his work; his use of folklore was directly informed by his
exploration of mystical ideas. Hogg is recast as a second Dante, and ‘bogey tales’
become catalysts for spiritual awakening. MacDonald’s fairy tales deal sensitively and
profoundly with the theme of child death, a tragedy that held personal significance for
him, and can thus be read as his attempt to come to terms with the reality of
bereavement by using Scottish folklore to explain it in mystical terms. Traditional
figures such as Thomas Rhymer, visionary poets, and doubles appear in his fairy tales as
guides and pilgrims out of the material world toward mystical union with the Divine.Vision, fiction and depiction : the forms and functions of visuality in the novels of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burneyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4438
There are many factors that contributed to the proliferation of visual codes, metaphors and references to the gendered gaze in women’s fiction of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This thesis argues that the visual details in women’s novels published between 1778 and 1815 are more significant than scholars have previously acknowledged.
My analysis of the oeuvres of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney shows that visuality — the nexus between the verbal and visual communication — provided them with a language within language capable of circumventing the cultural strictures on female expression in a way that allowed for concealed resistance. It conveyed the actual ways in which women ‘should’ see and appear in a society in which the reputation was image-based.My analysis journeys through physiognomic, psychological, theatrical and codified forms of visuality to highlight the multiplicity of its functions. I engage with scholarly critiques drawn from literature, art, optics, psychology, philosophy and anthropology to assert visuality’s multidisciplinary influences and diplomatic potential. I show that in fiction and in actuality, women had to negotiate four scopic forces that determined their ‘looks’ and manners of looking: the impartial spectator, the male gaze, the public eye and the disenfranchised female gaze. In a society dominated by ‘frustrated utterance,’ penetrating gazes and the perpetual threat of misinterpretation, women novelists used references to the visible and the invisible to comment on emotions, socio-economic conditions and patriarchal abuses. This thesis thus offers new insights into verbal economy by reassessing expression and perception from an unconventional point-of-view.
2014-06-01T00:00:00ZVolz, Jessica A.There are many factors that contributed to the proliferation of visual codes, metaphors and references to the gendered gaze in women’s fiction of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This thesis argues that the visual details in women’s novels published between 1778 and 1815 are more significant than scholars have previously acknowledged.
My analysis of the oeuvres of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney shows that visuality — the nexus between the verbal and visual communication — provided them with a language within language capable of circumventing the cultural strictures on female expression in a way that allowed for concealed resistance. It conveyed the actual ways in which women ‘should’ see and appear in a society in which the reputation was image-based.My analysis journeys through physiognomic, psychological, theatrical and codified forms of visuality to highlight the multiplicity of its functions. I engage with scholarly critiques drawn from literature, art, optics, psychology, philosophy and anthropology to assert visuality’s multidisciplinary influences and diplomatic potential. I show that in fiction and in actuality, women had to negotiate four scopic forces that determined their ‘looks’ and manners of looking: the impartial spectator, the male gaze, the public eye and the disenfranchised female gaze. In a society dominated by ‘frustrated utterance,’ penetrating gazes and the perpetual threat of misinterpretation, women novelists used references to the visible and the invisible to comment on emotions, socio-economic conditions and patriarchal abuses. This thesis thus offers new insights into verbal economy by reassessing expression and perception from an unconventional point-of-view.Hearing Forster : E. M. Forster and the politics of musichttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4424
This thesis explores E. M. Forster’s interest in the politics of music, illustrating the importance of music to Forster’s conceptions of personal relationships and imperialism, national character and literary influence, pacifism and heroism, class and amateurism. Discussing Forster’s novels, short stories, essays, lectures, letters, diaries, and broadcast talks, the thesis looks into the political nuances in Forster’s numerous allusions and references to musical composition, performance, and consumption. In so doing, the thesis challenges previous formalistic studies of Forster’s representations of music by highlighting his attention to the contentious relations between music and political contingencies.
The first chapter examines A Passage to India, considering Forster’s depictions of music in relation to the novel’s concern with friendship and imperialism. It explores the ways in which music functions politically in Forster’s most ‘rhythmical’ novel. The second chapter focuses on Forster’s description of the performance of Lucia di Lammermoor in Where Angels Fear to Tread. Reading this highly crafted scene as Forster’s attempt to ‘modernize’ fictional narrative, it discusses Forster’s negotiation of national character and literary heritage. The third chapter assesses Forster’s Wagnerism, scrutinizing the conjunction between Forster’s rumination on heroism and his criticism of Siegfried. The chapter pays particular attention to Forster’s uncharacteristic silence on Wagner during and after the Second World War. The fourth chapter investigates Forster’s celebration of musical amateurism. By analysing his characterization of musical amateurs and professionals in ‘The Machine Stops’, Arctic Summer, and Maurice, the chapter discusses the gender and class politics of Forster’s championing of freedom and idiosyncrasy.
2013-12-03T00:00:00ZTsai, Tsung-HanThis thesis explores E. M. Forster’s interest in the politics of music, illustrating the importance of music to Forster’s conceptions of personal relationships and imperialism, national character and literary influence, pacifism and heroism, class and amateurism. Discussing Forster’s novels, short stories, essays, lectures, letters, diaries, and broadcast talks, the thesis looks into the political nuances in Forster’s numerous allusions and references to musical composition, performance, and consumption. In so doing, the thesis challenges previous formalistic studies of Forster’s representations of music by highlighting his attention to the contentious relations between music and political contingencies.
The first chapter examines A Passage to India, considering Forster’s depictions of music in relation to the novel’s concern with friendship and imperialism. It explores the ways in which music functions politically in Forster’s most ‘rhythmical’ novel. The second chapter focuses on Forster’s description of the performance of Lucia di Lammermoor in Where Angels Fear to Tread. Reading this highly crafted scene as Forster’s attempt to ‘modernize’ fictional narrative, it discusses Forster’s negotiation of national character and literary heritage. The third chapter assesses Forster’s Wagnerism, scrutinizing the conjunction between Forster’s rumination on heroism and his criticism of Siegfried. The chapter pays particular attention to Forster’s uncharacteristic silence on Wagner during and after the Second World War. The fourth chapter investigates Forster’s celebration of musical amateurism. By analysing his characterization of musical amateurs and professionals in ‘The Machine Stops’, Arctic Summer, and Maurice, the chapter discusses the gender and class politics of Forster’s championing of freedom and idiosyncrasy.Romance in the prose of Robert Louis Stevensonhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4208
This thesis provides a wide-ranging account of the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, tracing an unyielding preoccupation with the mode of romance throughout his famously diverse body of writing. It argues that Stevenson’s prose retools romance in several important ways; these include modernization, disenchantment, and the reinterpretation of romance as a practical force able to reach beyond textual confines in order to carve out long-lasting psychological pathways in a reader. In its pursuit of these arguments, the thesis draws upon and appends a significant amount of archival material never before used, including excerpts from The Hair Trunk – Stevenson’s first extended piece of fiction, still unpublished in English. More widely, it analyses the appearance of romance within four major aspects of Stevenson’s prose: aesthetic theme, structure, setting, and heroism, each of which is the focus of a discrete chapter. The introduction engages with the history and definition of romance itself, arguing that it is most usefully approached as mode rather than genre in the context of Stevenson’s writing. Chapter I then assesses Stevenson’s direct critical engagement with romance, and appraises his wider literary aesthetic in that light. Romance is shown to be built in to the way he writes about writing, adventure being intrinsic to his authorial quest for adequate expression. Chapter II goes on to examine Stevenson’s relationship with structure, and argues that self-reflexivity interacts with romance to form the habitual core of his creative writing. Chapter III investigates the use of cities, forests and seas as sites of modern romance within Stevenson’s oeuvre, arguing that he eschews descriptive Romanticism and instead lauds a primarily practical approach towards the navigation of these environments. Finally, Chapter IV demonstrates Stevenson’s perception of a relationship between authorship and the heroic, charting his use of romance as part of a progressive evocation of the failure of heroism itself as a sustainable modern ideal.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZHowitt, Caroline AilsaThis thesis provides a wide-ranging account of the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, tracing an unyielding preoccupation with the mode of romance throughout his famously diverse body of writing. It argues that Stevenson’s prose retools romance in several important ways; these include modernization, disenchantment, and the reinterpretation of romance as a practical force able to reach beyond textual confines in order to carve out long-lasting psychological pathways in a reader. In its pursuit of these arguments, the thesis draws upon and appends a significant amount of archival material never before used, including excerpts from The Hair Trunk – Stevenson’s first extended piece of fiction, still unpublished in English. More widely, it analyses the appearance of romance within four major aspects of Stevenson’s prose: aesthetic theme, structure, setting, and heroism, each of which is the focus of a discrete chapter. The introduction engages with the history and definition of romance itself, arguing that it is most usefully approached as mode rather than genre in the context of Stevenson’s writing. Chapter I then assesses Stevenson’s direct critical engagement with romance, and appraises his wider literary aesthetic in that light. Romance is shown to be built in to the way he writes about writing, adventure being intrinsic to his authorial quest for adequate expression. Chapter II goes on to examine Stevenson’s relationship with structure, and argues that self-reflexivity interacts with romance to form the habitual core of his creative writing. Chapter III investigates the use of cities, forests and seas as sites of modern romance within Stevenson’s oeuvre, arguing that he eschews descriptive Romanticism and instead lauds a primarily practical approach towards the navigation of these environments. Finally, Chapter IV demonstrates Stevenson’s perception of a relationship between authorship and the heroic, charting his use of romance as part of a progressive evocation of the failure of heroism itself as a sustainable modern ideal.'Piteous overthrows' : pity and identity in early modern English literaturehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4197
This thesis traces the use of pity in early modern English literature, highlighting in particular the ways in which the emotion prompted personal anxieties and threatened Burckhardtian notions of the self-contained, autonomous individual, even as it acted as a central, crucial component of personal identity. The first chapter considers pity in medieval drama, and ultimately argues that the institutional changes that took place during the Reformation ushered in a new era, in which people felt themselves to be subjected to interpersonal emotions – pity especially – in new, overwhelming, and difficult ways. The remaining three chapters examine how pity complicates questions of personal identity in Renaissance literature. Chapter Two discusses the masculine bid for pity in courtly lyric poetry, including Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella and Barnabe Barnes’s Parthenophil and Parthenophe, and considers the undercurrents of vulnerability and violation that emerge in the wake of unanswered emotional appeals. This chapter also examines these themes in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Sidney’s Arcadia. Chapter Three also picks up the element of violation, extending it to the pitiable presentation of sexual aggression in Lucrece narratives. Chapter Four explores the recognition of suffering and vulnerability across species boundaries, highlighting the use of pity to define humanity against the rest of the animal kingdom, and focusing in particular on how these questions are handled by Shakespeare in The Tempest and Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Fair.
This work represents the first extended study of pity in early modern English literature, and suggests that the emotion had a constitutive role in personal subjectivity, in addition to structuring various forms of social relation. Ultimately, the thesis contends that the early modern English interest in pity indicates a central worry about vulnerability, but also, crucially, a belief in the necessity of recognising shared, human weakness.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZJohnson, Toria AnneThis thesis traces the use of pity in early modern English literature, highlighting in particular the ways in which the emotion prompted personal anxieties and threatened Burckhardtian notions of the self-contained, autonomous individual, even as it acted as a central, crucial component of personal identity. The first chapter considers pity in medieval drama, and ultimately argues that the institutional changes that took place during the Reformation ushered in a new era, in which people felt themselves to be subjected to interpersonal emotions – pity especially – in new, overwhelming, and difficult ways. The remaining three chapters examine how pity complicates questions of personal identity in Renaissance literature. Chapter Two discusses the masculine bid for pity in courtly lyric poetry, including Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella and Barnabe Barnes’s Parthenophil and Parthenophe, and considers the undercurrents of vulnerability and violation that emerge in the wake of unanswered emotional appeals. This chapter also examines these themes in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Sidney’s Arcadia. Chapter Three also picks up the element of violation, extending it to the pitiable presentation of sexual aggression in Lucrece narratives. Chapter Four explores the recognition of suffering and vulnerability across species boundaries, highlighting the use of pity to define humanity against the rest of the animal kingdom, and focusing in particular on how these questions are handled by Shakespeare in The Tempest and Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Fair.
This work represents the first extended study of pity in early modern English literature, and suggests that the emotion had a constitutive role in personal subjectivity, in addition to structuring various forms of social relation. Ultimately, the thesis contends that the early modern English interest in pity indicates a central worry about vulnerability, but also, crucially, a belief in the necessity of recognising shared, human weakness.'Carnal acts' : from theory to publicationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4186
The first part of the thesis comprises Chapters 1 to 40 of the novel, written
under a pseudonym, followed by a synopsis of the remaining
chapters, 41 to 155. The potential jacket copy will refer to the protagonists, a male and a female detective.
The second part of the thesis is a critical study of the novel. Literary theory
and critical methods are used to investigate the writing process and to explicate the
text’s layers of meaning, not all of which were clear to the author at the time of
writing. Chapter 1 considers literary and creative writing theory, paying particular
attention to conceptualisations of author and reader. In Chapter 2, the chosen
pseudonym is explained and compared with those of other authors; the novel’s title is
also examined. Chapter 3 covers the issue of genre, looking at theories and discussing
both crime novel and Gothic fiction. In Chapter 4, critical approaches to character are
applied. Chapter 5 does the same with plot. Chapters 6 and 7 take
account of the manifestations of power. Chapter 6 covers the body and gender, while
Chapter 7 deals with race and class. As a conclusion, Chapter 8 describes how the
first draft was transformed to one acceptable for publication.
Title redacted at the request of the author. 31/1/14
2014-06-24T00:00:00ZJohnston, PaulThe first part of the thesis comprises Chapters 1 to 40 of the novel, written
under a pseudonym, followed by a synopsis of the remaining
chapters, 41 to 155. The potential jacket copy will refer to the protagonists, a male and a female detective.
The second part of the thesis is a critical study of the novel. Literary theory
and critical methods are used to investigate the writing process and to explicate the
text’s layers of meaning, not all of which were clear to the author at the time of
writing. Chapter 1 considers literary and creative writing theory, paying particular
attention to conceptualisations of author and reader. In Chapter 2, the chosen
pseudonym is explained and compared with those of other authors; the novel’s title is
also examined. Chapter 3 covers the issue of genre, looking at theories and discussing
both crime novel and Gothic fiction. In Chapter 4, critical approaches to character are
applied. Chapter 5 does the same with plot. Chapters 6 and 7 take
account of the manifestations of power. Chapter 6 covers the body and gender, while
Chapter 7 deals with race and class. As a conclusion, Chapter 8 describes how the
first draft was transformed to one acceptable for publication.A Saxon state : Anglo-Saxonism and the English nation, 1703-1805http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4146
For the past century, medievalism studies generally and Anglo-Saxonism studies in particular have largely dismissed the eighteenth century as a dark period in English interest in the Anglo-Saxons. Recent scholarship has tended to elide Anglo-Saxon studies with Old English studies and consequently has overlooked contributions from fields such as archaeology, art history and political philosophy. This thesis provides the first re-examination of scholarly, antiquarian and popular Anglo-Saxonism in eighteenth-century England and argues that, far from disappearing, interest in Anglo-Saxon culture and history permeated British culture and made significant contributions to contemporary formulations and expressions of Englishness and English national, legal and cultural identities.
Each chapter examines a different category of Anglo-Saxonist production or activity, as those categories would be distributed across current scholarship, in order to explore the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons were understood and deployed in the construction of contemporary cultural- historiographical narratives. The first three chapters contain, respectively, a review of the achievements of the ‘Oxford school’ of Saxonists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; antiquarian Anglo-Saxon studies by members of the Society of Antiquaries of London and their correspondents; and historiographical presentations of the Anglo-Saxons in local, county and national histories. Chapters four and five examine the appearance of the Anglo-Saxons in visual and dramatic art, and the role of Anglo-Saxonist legal and juridical language in eighteenth-century politics, with reference to discoveries resulting from the academic and antiquarian research outlined in chapters one to three. It is my contention that Anglo-Saxonism came to serve as a unifying ideology of origins for English citizens concerned with national history, and political and social institutions. As a popular as well as scholarly ideology, Anglo-Saxonism also came to define English national character and values, an English identity recognised and celebrated as such both at home and abroad.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZFrazier, Dustin M.For the past century, medievalism studies generally and Anglo-Saxonism studies in particular have largely dismissed the eighteenth century as a dark period in English interest in the Anglo-Saxons. Recent scholarship has tended to elide Anglo-Saxon studies with Old English studies and consequently has overlooked contributions from fields such as archaeology, art history and political philosophy. This thesis provides the first re-examination of scholarly, antiquarian and popular Anglo-Saxonism in eighteenth-century England and argues that, far from disappearing, interest in Anglo-Saxon culture and history permeated British culture and made significant contributions to contemporary formulations and expressions of Englishness and English national, legal and cultural identities.
Each chapter examines a different category of Anglo-Saxonist production or activity, as those categories would be distributed across current scholarship, in order to explore the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons were understood and deployed in the construction of contemporary cultural- historiographical narratives. The first three chapters contain, respectively, a review of the achievements of the ‘Oxford school’ of Saxonists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; antiquarian Anglo-Saxon studies by members of the Society of Antiquaries of London and their correspondents; and historiographical presentations of the Anglo-Saxons in local, county and national histories. Chapters four and five examine the appearance of the Anglo-Saxons in visual and dramatic art, and the role of Anglo-Saxonist legal and juridical language in eighteenth-century politics, with reference to discoveries resulting from the academic and antiquarian research outlined in chapters one to three. It is my contention that Anglo-Saxonism came to serve as a unifying ideology of origins for English citizens concerned with national history, and political and social institutions. As a popular as well as scholarly ideology, Anglo-Saxonism also came to define English national character and values, an English identity recognised and celebrated as such both at home and abroad.Contemporary poets' responses to sciencehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/4058
This thesis considers a range of contemporary poets’ responses to science, emphasising the diversity of these engagements and exploring how poetry can disrupt or re-negotiate the barriers between the two activities. My first chapter explores the idea of ‘authority’ in both science and poetry and considers how these authorities co-exist in the work of two poet-scientists, Miroslav Holub and David Morley. My second chapter considers the role of metaphor in science and the effect of transferring scientific terms into poetry, specifically with reference to the poetry of Michael Symmons Roberts who engages with the metaphors related to the human genome. In my third chapter I focus on collections by Ruth Padel and Emily Ballou that tell the life of Charles Darwin in verse. I discuss how these collections function as forms of scientific biography and show that poetic engagement with Darwin’s thought processes reveals some of the similarities between scientific and poetic thinking. An area of science such as quantum mechanics may seem too complex for a non-scientist to respond to in poetry, but in my fourth chapter I show how Jorie Graham uses ideas from twentieth-century physics to re-think the materialism of the world and our perception of it. My final chapter is concerned with the relationship between ecopoetry and ecological science, with regard to the work of John Burnside. I show that although he is informed about scientific matters, in his poetry he suggests that science isn’t the only way of understanding the world.
Rather than framing science and poetry in terms of the ‘two cultures’, this thesis moves away from antagonism towards productive interaction and dialogue. Whilst science and poetry are clearly very different activities, the many points of overlap and connection between them suggest that poetry is a resonant and unique way of exploring scientific ideas.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZMacKenzie, Victoria R.This thesis considers a range of contemporary poets’ responses to science, emphasising the diversity of these engagements and exploring how poetry can disrupt or re-negotiate the barriers between the two activities. My first chapter explores the idea of ‘authority’ in both science and poetry and considers how these authorities co-exist in the work of two poet-scientists, Miroslav Holub and David Morley. My second chapter considers the role of metaphor in science and the effect of transferring scientific terms into poetry, specifically with reference to the poetry of Michael Symmons Roberts who engages with the metaphors related to the human genome. In my third chapter I focus on collections by Ruth Padel and Emily Ballou that tell the life of Charles Darwin in verse. I discuss how these collections function as forms of scientific biography and show that poetic engagement with Darwin’s thought processes reveals some of the similarities between scientific and poetic thinking. An area of science such as quantum mechanics may seem too complex for a non-scientist to respond to in poetry, but in my fourth chapter I show how Jorie Graham uses ideas from twentieth-century physics to re-think the materialism of the world and our perception of it. My final chapter is concerned with the relationship between ecopoetry and ecological science, with regard to the work of John Burnside. I show that although he is informed about scientific matters, in his poetry he suggests that science isn’t the only way of understanding the world.
Rather than framing science and poetry in terms of the ‘two cultures’, this thesis moves away from antagonism towards productive interaction and dialogue. Whilst science and poetry are clearly very different activities, the many points of overlap and connection between them suggest that poetry is a resonant and unique way of exploring scientific ideas.'Putting Words on the Backs of Rhythm' : Woolf, 'Street Music', and The Voyage Outhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3989
This essay explores Virginia Woolf's representation of rhythm in two early texts-her neglected 1905 essay 'Street Music' and her first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). It teases out the texts' characterisations of musical, literary, bodily and urban rhythms, considering their implications for a theory of literary rhythm more broadly. Arguing that rhythm has a central place in Woolf's writing practice, prose style and theories of writing, the essay charts the relationship between rhythm, individuality and literary value in these texts, and in selected correspondence, diary extracts, essays and fiction.
2010-07-01T00:00:00ZSutton, Emma SophieThis essay explores Virginia Woolf's representation of rhythm in two early texts-her neglected 1905 essay 'Street Music' and her first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). It teases out the texts' characterisations of musical, literary, bodily and urban rhythms, considering their implications for a theory of literary rhythm more broadly. Arguing that rhythm has a central place in Woolf's writing practice, prose style and theories of writing, the essay charts the relationship between rhythm, individuality and literary value in these texts, and in selected correspondence, diary extracts, essays and fiction.Finishing off Jane Austen : the evolution of responses to Austen through continuations of The Watsonshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3972
This doctoral thesis analyses the evolution of responses to Jane Austen’s fiction through continuations of her unfinished novel The Watsons (c.1803-5). Although the first full “appropriation” of an Austen novel ever published was a continuation of The Watsons and a total of eight completions appeared between 1850 and 2008, little research has been done to link the afterlife of The Watsons and changing perceptions of Austen. This thesis argues that the completions of The Watsons significantly illuminate Austen’s reception: they expose conflicting readings of Austen’s novels through textual negotiations between the completer’s and Austen’s voice. My study begins by examining how the first continuation, Catherine Hubback’s The Younger Sister (1850), implies an alternative image of the Victorian Austen to that propounded by James Edward Austen-Leigh, Austen’s first official biographer (Chapter 1). The next two chapters focus on the effects of World War I and II on modes of reading Austen. Through L. Oulton’s (1923), Edith Brown’s (1928) and John Coates’s (1958) completions of The Watsons, this study examines the connection between Austen’s fiction and different notions of Englishness, politics and the nation. Chapter Four addresses the contribution of the 1990s completions to the debate over Austen’s feminism. Finally, Chapter Five analyses recent trends in Austenalia, which thwart the production of successful completions of The Watsons. My thesis presents the first substantial analysis of this body of work.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZCano López, MarinaThis doctoral thesis analyses the evolution of responses to Jane Austen’s fiction through continuations of her unfinished novel The Watsons (c.1803-5). Although the first full “appropriation” of an Austen novel ever published was a continuation of The Watsons and a total of eight completions appeared between 1850 and 2008, little research has been done to link the afterlife of The Watsons and changing perceptions of Austen. This thesis argues that the completions of The Watsons significantly illuminate Austen’s reception: they expose conflicting readings of Austen’s novels through textual negotiations between the completer’s and Austen’s voice. My study begins by examining how the first continuation, Catherine Hubback’s The Younger Sister (1850), implies an alternative image of the Victorian Austen to that propounded by James Edward Austen-Leigh, Austen’s first official biographer (Chapter 1). The next two chapters focus on the effects of World War I and II on modes of reading Austen. Through L. Oulton’s (1923), Edith Brown’s (1928) and John Coates’s (1958) completions of The Watsons, this study examines the connection between Austen’s fiction and different notions of Englishness, politics and the nation. Chapter Four addresses the contribution of the 1990s completions to the debate over Austen’s feminism. Finally, Chapter Five analyses recent trends in Austenalia, which thwart the production of successful completions of The Watsons. My thesis presents the first substantial analysis of this body of work.From Shorty Blake to Tubby Binns : Dunkirk and the Representation of Working-Class Masculinity in Postwar British Cinemahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3955
2012-04-01T00:00:00ZPlain, GillPierre Viret and France, 1559-1565http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3845
2000-01-01T00:00:00ZFoster, StuartBrotherhood : a novel ; Shepherds on skates : Canadian hockey fiction as a version of pastoralhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3743
'Brotherhood: A Novel' – Doug and Jerry are fraternal twins, orphaned as infants
and raised by their grandparents. Dying of cancer, Jerry moves back home to
live with Doug after a nearly fifteen year estrangement. Set against the
backdrop of the 2001 NHL playoffs, Jerry searches through his memories in
the hope of understanding the complex relationship he has with his brother,
and to figure out the roles they are meant to play in each other’s lives. //
'Shepherds on Skates: Canadian Hockey Fiction as a Version of Pastoral' – the last
quarter century in Canadian fiction has seen an increasing number of ‘hockey
novels’ – serious literary works in which hockey plays a significant thematic
or dramatic role. This portion of the thesis examines these narratives in order
to ground them in the tradition of pastoral poetry. Using as context the
pastoral journey of retreat and return, as well as the pastoral elegy, Canadian
hockey fiction is seen to function in similar ways to traditional pastoralists,
and, more importantly, for similar reasons.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZWooldridge, Robert'Brotherhood: A Novel' – Doug and Jerry are fraternal twins, orphaned as infants
and raised by their grandparents. Dying of cancer, Jerry moves back home to
live with Doug after a nearly fifteen year estrangement. Set against the
backdrop of the 2001 NHL playoffs, Jerry searches through his memories in
the hope of understanding the complex relationship he has with his brother,
and to figure out the roles they are meant to play in each other’s lives. //
'Shepherds on Skates: Canadian Hockey Fiction as a Version of Pastoral' – the last
quarter century in Canadian fiction has seen an increasing number of ‘hockey
novels’ – serious literary works in which hockey plays a significant thematic
or dramatic role. This portion of the thesis examines these narratives in order
to ground them in the tradition of pastoral poetry. Using as context the
pastoral journey of retreat and return, as well as the pastoral elegy, Canadian
hockey fiction is seen to function in similar ways to traditional pastoralists,
and, more importantly, for similar reasons.James Jones and Joseph Heller : an essay in contrastshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3704
This dissertation has two purposes. One is to discuss the ideas of James Jones and Joseph Heller on the interrelation of the individual and society. Both of these writers locate their characters within the context of larger orders and institutions, and deal with the question of how an individual can and should balance his personal interests against his interests as a member of a social organization.
The dissertation's second focus is on technique: Jones' and Heller's fictional focus and creative relationship with characters and the reader. This contrast is traced through modes of narration, organization, characterization, and plotting.
Chapter I establishes the basic contrasts: between Jones' acceptance of military life, in his Army trilogy of From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, and his willingness to portray this as comprehensible; and Heller's treatment of the military as absurd in Catch-22.
Chapter II discusses the substance of Jones' fiction. It locates Jones, through his anti-aestheticism, sensationalist focus on the sordid, and treatment of men as social animals, individuals within a collective, as a contemporary follower of the Naturalist tradition. The discussion traces Jones' links to other writers, among them Stendhal, Conrad, Crane, and London.
Chapter III deals with Jones' style. It follows Jones' transition from a consciously eccentric idiom, marked by deliberately violent metaphors and idiosyncratic punctuation, toward a goal of colloquiality.
Chapter IV covers the Absurdist rhetoric of Heller's Catch-22, discussing the rhetorical devices which create the novel's tone of confusion and absurdity and the realistic detail and humor which sustain its narrative.
Chapter V traces through Heller's novels the development of their author's understanding of the idea of society. In Catch-22, Heller rejects outright the idea that "society" exists; in Something Happened he demonstrates again the absurdity of
conforming to what one believes are social bonds. In Good As Gold his protagonist discovers that to be true to one's own family and background is also to be true to oneself.
Chapter VI contrasts Heller's means of characterization, which define characters for the reader through biography and physical description, with Jones' preference for using dramatization to present a character for the reader's assessment.
Chapter VII deals with plotting, comparing Heller's view of the novel as a working-out of preconceived ideas with Jones' treatment of the novel as an exploration of characters' interaction.
1984-01-01T00:00:00ZBoyer, Allen D.This dissertation has two purposes. One is to discuss the ideas of James Jones and Joseph Heller on the interrelation of the individual and society. Both of these writers locate their characters within the context of larger orders and institutions, and deal with the question of how an individual can and should balance his personal interests against his interests as a member of a social organization.
The dissertation's second focus is on technique: Jones' and Heller's fictional focus and creative relationship with characters and the reader. This contrast is traced through modes of narration, organization, characterization, and plotting.
Chapter I establishes the basic contrasts: between Jones' acceptance of military life, in his Army trilogy of From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, and his willingness to portray this as comprehensible; and Heller's treatment of the military as absurd in Catch-22.
Chapter II discusses the substance of Jones' fiction. It locates Jones, through his anti-aestheticism, sensationalist focus on the sordid, and treatment of men as social animals, individuals within a collective, as a contemporary follower of the Naturalist tradition. The discussion traces Jones' links to other writers, among them Stendhal, Conrad, Crane, and London.
Chapter III deals with Jones' style. It follows Jones' transition from a consciously eccentric idiom, marked by deliberately violent metaphors and idiosyncratic punctuation, toward a goal of colloquiality.
Chapter IV covers the Absurdist rhetoric of Heller's Catch-22, discussing the rhetorical devices which create the novel's tone of confusion and absurdity and the realistic detail and humor which sustain its narrative.
Chapter V traces through Heller's novels the development of their author's understanding of the idea of society. In Catch-22, Heller rejects outright the idea that "society" exists; in Something Happened he demonstrates again the absurdity of
conforming to what one believes are social bonds. In Good As Gold his protagonist discovers that to be true to one's own family and background is also to be true to oneself.
Chapter VI contrasts Heller's means of characterization, which define characters for the reader through biography and physical description, with Jones' preference for using dramatization to present a character for the reader's assessment.
Chapter VII deals with plotting, comparing Heller's view of the novel as a working-out of preconceived ideas with Jones' treatment of the novel as an exploration of characters' interaction.Aspects of asceticism in the poetry of T. S. Eliothttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3658
This thesis examines asceticism in T. S. Eliot's poetry by recapitulating his education in mysticism and theology then applying both the texts and doctrines to Eliot's poetry.
Harvard's Houghton Library contains a record of approximately thirty books that he read
during his graduate study, and a partial list appeared in Lyndall Gordon's 1977 biography T. S. Eliot's Early Years. Yet, these works have received little critical attention, and this is the first study to examine these works significantly. Intense reading of these neglected sources composes a large portion of the research for this thesis and offers original insight into the
theme of asceticism. Eliot's poetry frequently displays broad ideals of asceticism—often in the form of discipline and purgation, but the nature of the asceticism is not consistent. In the
poems before his conversion, Eliot engages significantly with his education by portraying ascetic failures and their consequences. After Eliot's conversion, the asceticism becomes more orthodox in nature, and the doctrines encountered early in life are openly espoused.
2012-01-01T00:00:00ZRichards, JoshuaThis thesis examines asceticism in T. S. Eliot's poetry by recapitulating his education in mysticism and theology then applying both the texts and doctrines to Eliot's poetry.
Harvard's Houghton Library contains a record of approximately thirty books that he read
during his graduate study, and a partial list appeared in Lyndall Gordon's 1977 biography T. S. Eliot's Early Years. Yet, these works have received little critical attention, and this is the first study to examine these works significantly. Intense reading of these neglected sources composes a large portion of the research for this thesis and offers original insight into the
theme of asceticism. Eliot's poetry frequently displays broad ideals of asceticism—often in the form of discipline and purgation, but the nature of the asceticism is not consistent. In the
poems before his conversion, Eliot engages significantly with his education by portraying ascetic failures and their consequences. After Eliot's conversion, the asceticism becomes more orthodox in nature, and the doctrines encountered early in life are openly espoused.'To be translated at the last' : Christopher Smart's Englishing endeavourhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3645
In this thesis, Christopher Smart’s work is presented as a coherent project of
‘Englishing’ to produce nationalised verse celebrating England and promoting the
Anglican Church. Chapter One places Smart’s original religious poetry within the
context of his translations. The analysis concentrates on three themes: the promotion of England in the Hymns and Spiritual Songs; Smart’s manipulation of verbal effects as a
variety of translation in Jubilate Agno; and an interpretation of A Song to David as a
form of applied praise. Chapter Two provides an analysis of Smart’s translation of the
Psalms alongside a number of other similar productions. Five elements are examined:
narrative identity in translation, the place of Smart’s psalms within an anglicised liturgy; Christian elements, censoring the Psalms; and the creation of English lyric through the domestication of biblical verse. Chapter Three examines Smart’s translation of the fables of Phaedrus, where the significance of Smart’s Englishing project is reinforced in the context of his interpreting a Romanised text. The genre of fable is considered in its eighteenth-century political and educational contexts, illustrated with detailed reference
to Smart’s periodical fables from the 1750s and the poet’s rewriting of Phaedrus in the
following decade. Finally, Chapter Four provides a complete assessment of the 1767
Works of Horace. First, Smart’s translation is considered alongside other translations
and interpretations of Horace and his work. Smart’s Englished text is then explored in
three areas: the translator’s paratextual mediation between text and reader, the creation of anglicised settings, and the development of English lyrical forms from Latin originals. The thesis concludes with an examination of how Smart’s translation work results in the creation of original lyric verse that seals the poet’s literary permanence.
2012-01-01T00:00:00ZPowell, RosalindIn this thesis, Christopher Smart’s work is presented as a coherent project of
‘Englishing’ to produce nationalised verse celebrating England and promoting the
Anglican Church. Chapter One places Smart’s original religious poetry within the
context of his translations. The analysis concentrates on three themes: the promotion of England in the Hymns and Spiritual Songs; Smart’s manipulation of verbal effects as a
variety of translation in Jubilate Agno; and an interpretation of A Song to David as a
form of applied praise. Chapter Two provides an analysis of Smart’s translation of the
Psalms alongside a number of other similar productions. Five elements are examined:
narrative identity in translation, the place of Smart’s psalms within an anglicised liturgy; Christian elements, censoring the Psalms; and the creation of English lyric through the domestication of biblical verse. Chapter Three examines Smart’s translation of the fables of Phaedrus, where the significance of Smart’s Englishing project is reinforced in the context of his interpreting a Romanised text. The genre of fable is considered in its eighteenth-century political and educational contexts, illustrated with detailed reference
to Smart’s periodical fables from the 1750s and the poet’s rewriting of Phaedrus in the
following decade. Finally, Chapter Four provides a complete assessment of the 1767
Works of Horace. First, Smart’s translation is considered alongside other translations
and interpretations of Horace and his work. Smart’s Englished text is then explored in
three areas: the translator’s paratextual mediation between text and reader, the creation of anglicised settings, and the development of English lyrical forms from Latin originals. The thesis concludes with an examination of how Smart’s translation work results in the creation of original lyric verse that seals the poet’s literary permanence.The Penitential Psalms in sixteenth-century England : bodies and textshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3579
At the center of this thesis are seven psalms, commonly known as the Penitential Psalms. The Penitential Psalms were often used in connection to corporeal expressions of the sacrament, and though sacramental practices changed, they retained this association, and even became a catalyst for literary change and experimentation. In this thesis, I will show how these psalms were connected to the sacrament of penance throughout the medieval period, and well into the religiously tumultuous sixteenth century.
This thesis explores four texts that take up the Penitential Psalms, adapting, refashioning, and reappropriating them to be used in different ways. The Introduction outlines the history of the Penitential Psalms and their interconnectedness with sacramental theology and practice; it further establishes the cultural and theoretical context within which the four examined texts must be considered. These sacramental ties with the Penitential Psalms are not found only in theological writings, but they also infused lay practice and experience, as I will show in Chapter One, where I examine the staunchly Protestant Actes and Monuments by John Foxe. Additionally, I argue that Foxe’s accounts of Marian martyrs point to Psalm 51 both as a text of protest and memorialization. Chapter Two then moves to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s A Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms; there I examine the presence of the male body within the work, placing the text within the setting of a visual history that illustrates David’s illicit desire for Bathsheba. With this tradition in mind, I examine trajectories of ocularity within the narrative, tracing the redirection of sexual desire. Anne Lock’s Meditation of a Pentient Sinner is the center of Chapter Three. Meditation, when considered in relation to the dedicatory epistle, reveals connections to the standardized penitential process, and I argue that Lock presents a modified form of repentance to her reader. The final chapter looks at The Sidney Psalter’s Penitential Psalms, which reveal an incoherent view of the penitential body merging with the body of the dead war-hero, Philip. It is within this penitential affect that the penitent displays and partitions his or her own body slipping into an otherness predicated by sin.
2013-11-30T00:00:00ZWyma, Katherine CooperAt the center of this thesis are seven psalms, commonly known as the Penitential Psalms. The Penitential Psalms were often used in connection to corporeal expressions of the sacrament, and though sacramental practices changed, they retained this association, and even became a catalyst for literary change and experimentation. In this thesis, I will show how these psalms were connected to the sacrament of penance throughout the medieval period, and well into the religiously tumultuous sixteenth century.
This thesis explores four texts that take up the Penitential Psalms, adapting, refashioning, and reappropriating them to be used in different ways. The Introduction outlines the history of the Penitential Psalms and their interconnectedness with sacramental theology and practice; it further establishes the cultural and theoretical context within which the four examined texts must be considered. These sacramental ties with the Penitential Psalms are not found only in theological writings, but they also infused lay practice and experience, as I will show in Chapter One, where I examine the staunchly Protestant Actes and Monuments by John Foxe. Additionally, I argue that Foxe’s accounts of Marian martyrs point to Psalm 51 both as a text of protest and memorialization. Chapter Two then moves to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s A Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms; there I examine the presence of the male body within the work, placing the text within the setting of a visual history that illustrates David’s illicit desire for Bathsheba. With this tradition in mind, I examine trajectories of ocularity within the narrative, tracing the redirection of sexual desire. Anne Lock’s Meditation of a Pentient Sinner is the center of Chapter Three. Meditation, when considered in relation to the dedicatory epistle, reveals connections to the standardized penitential process, and I argue that Lock presents a modified form of repentance to her reader. The final chapter looks at The Sidney Psalter’s Penitential Psalms, which reveal an incoherent view of the penitential body merging with the body of the dead war-hero, Philip. It is within this penitential affect that the penitent displays and partitions his or her own body slipping into an otherness predicated by sin.Rudyard Kipling and Victorian Buddhismhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3543
The thesis recontextualises the fiction of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century writer Rudyard Kipling by exploring aspects of Victorian Buddhism in a selection of his published work. It demonstrates his engagement with a variety of Buddhist histories and cultures, showing a serious artistic and imaginative response to and interpretation of Buddhism. Focusing primarily on the novel Kim, the thesis develops existing criticism, examining the character of the lama. Additionally, it studies features of Victorian Buddhism other than textual sources, drawing on work by scholars in fields such as the history of art and the history of religion. As well as considering varied Buddhist elements in Kim, the thesis examines the theme of the survival of the soul, situating short stories from various periods of Kipling’s writing life in the context of scholarly debates about Nirvana and reincarnation. Attention is also given to critically neglected travel writing from the Letters of Marque series written for periodical publication. Kipling’s work is shown to be deeply concerned with and sympathetic to Buddhism and Buddhist cultures.
2013-06-01T00:00:00ZLouttit, ErinThe thesis recontextualises the fiction of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century writer Rudyard Kipling by exploring aspects of Victorian Buddhism in a selection of his published work. It demonstrates his engagement with a variety of Buddhist histories and cultures, showing a serious artistic and imaginative response to and interpretation of Buddhism. Focusing primarily on the novel Kim, the thesis develops existing criticism, examining the character of the lama. Additionally, it studies features of Victorian Buddhism other than textual sources, drawing on work by scholars in fields such as the history of art and the history of religion. As well as considering varied Buddhist elements in Kim, the thesis examines the theme of the survival of the soul, situating short stories from various periods of Kipling’s writing life in the context of scholarly debates about Nirvana and reincarnation. Attention is also given to critically neglected travel writing from the Letters of Marque series written for periodical publication. Kipling’s work is shown to be deeply concerned with and sympathetic to Buddhism and Buddhist cultures.Pavilioned on nothing : nihilism and its counterforces in the works of Oscar Wildehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3515
This thesis explores the role of Nihilism in Oscar Wilde's thought and writing, beginning
with the depiction of Russian Political Nihilism in Wilde's first play; Vera, or the Nihilists
and tracing the engagement with philosophical Nihilism in his fiction, drama and essays, up
to and including De Profundis. It is argued that Russian Political Nihilism derives from the
same sources and expresses the same concerns as the philosophical Nihilism discussed by
Nietzsche in The Will to Power, and that Nietzsche and Wilde, working independently, came
to a strikingly similar understanding of Nihilism. Philosophical Nihilism is defined in two
ways; as the complete absence of values (Absolute Nihilism) and as a sense that, while
absolute values may exist, they are unattainable, unknowable or inexpressible (Relative
Nihilism). Wilde uses his writing to express Nihilism while simultaneously seeking aesthetic
and ethical counterforces to it, eventually coming to see Art and the life of the Artist as the
ultimate forms of resistance to Nihilism.
Wilde's philosophical views are examined in the context of his time, and in the light of his
exceptionally wide reading. He is compared and contrasted with Nietzsche, the philosopher
who has done most to shape our view of what Nihilism means, in his ethical and aesthetic
response to Nihilism. The conclusion also considers the reception of Wilde's expression of
Nihilism and his employment of Art as the only superior counterforce in the first half of the
twentieth century, with particular reference to the works of Gide and Proust. Their
engagement with Nihilism is explored both in historical context and as a way of addressing a
problem which has become uniquely pervasive and pressing in the modern era.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZCavendish-Jones, ColinThis thesis explores the role of Nihilism in Oscar Wilde's thought and writing, beginning
with the depiction of Russian Political Nihilism in Wilde's first play; Vera, or the Nihilists
and tracing the engagement with philosophical Nihilism in his fiction, drama and essays, up
to and including De Profundis. It is argued that Russian Political Nihilism derives from the
same sources and expresses the same concerns as the philosophical Nihilism discussed by
Nietzsche in The Will to Power, and that Nietzsche and Wilde, working independently, came
to a strikingly similar understanding of Nihilism. Philosophical Nihilism is defined in two
ways; as the complete absence of values (Absolute Nihilism) and as a sense that, while
absolute values may exist, they are unattainable, unknowable or inexpressible (Relative
Nihilism). Wilde uses his writing to express Nihilism while simultaneously seeking aesthetic
and ethical counterforces to it, eventually coming to see Art and the life of the Artist as the
ultimate forms of resistance to Nihilism.
Wilde's philosophical views are examined in the context of his time, and in the light of his
exceptionally wide reading. He is compared and contrasted with Nietzsche, the philosopher
who has done most to shape our view of what Nihilism means, in his ethical and aesthetic
response to Nihilism. The conclusion also considers the reception of Wilde's expression of
Nihilism and his employment of Art as the only superior counterforce in the first half of the
twentieth century, with particular reference to the works of Gide and Proust. Their
engagement with Nihilism is explored both in historical context and as a way of addressing a
problem which has become uniquely pervasive and pressing in the modern era.Concepts of folly in English Renaissance literature : with particular reference to Shakespeare and Jonsonhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3475
Chapter 1 considers Barclay's 'Ship of Fools' in relation to other folly literature in English, particularly Lydgate's 'Order of Fools', Skelton's 'Bowge of Courte', and 'Cocke Lorrel's Bote'. Motifs, allegories and the woodcuts of the text are discussed and some are included in an Illustrations section. Chapter 2 discusses Erasmian folly looking back to the Neoplatonic writings of Nicholas of Cusa, and to the debt Erasmian exegeses owe to Origen. Erasmus' own philosophical and theological views are examined, particularly as they are found in his 'Enchiridion', and in the influence of Thomas à Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ'. A close textual analysis of the 'Moriae Encomium' is undertaken in this light. Chapter 3 defines the lateral boundaries of folly, where it blends into madness. In the context of Renaissance psychology sixteenth century medical works are analysed, including Boorde's 'Breviary of Healthe', Barrough's 'Method of Physicke' and Elyot's 'Castel of Helth'. Blurring between madness and sin, the negative judgments on the mad as demon-possessed, and the biblical models from which such judgments largely arose give alternative perspectives on madness and its relation to folly. Chapters 4-6 look at three Shakespearean comedies showing the development of a primarily Erasmian view of folly. This moves from overt references in 'Love's Labour's Lost' to natural folly, the folly of love and theological folly, through carnivalesque aspects of folly and madness in 'Twelfth Night', to an embedded notion of folly which influences and affects the darker comedy of 'Measure for Measure'. Chapter 7 considers satires of Hall, Marston and Guilpin, and looks at Jonson's Humour plays in this context. 'Volpone' and 'Epicoene', and 'The Alchemist' and 'Bartholomew Fair' are discussed in pairs, showing the softening of Jonson's attitude to folly, and his increasing representation of Erasmian folly reaching its full expression in 'Bartholomew Fair'.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZBulman, Helen LoisChapter 1 considers Barclay's 'Ship of Fools' in relation to other folly literature in English, particularly Lydgate's 'Order of Fools', Skelton's 'Bowge of Courte', and 'Cocke Lorrel's Bote'. Motifs, allegories and the woodcuts of the text are discussed and some are included in an Illustrations section. Chapter 2 discusses Erasmian folly looking back to the Neoplatonic writings of Nicholas of Cusa, and to the debt Erasmian exegeses owe to Origen. Erasmus' own philosophical and theological views are examined, particularly as they are found in his 'Enchiridion', and in the influence of Thomas à Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ'. A close textual analysis of the 'Moriae Encomium' is undertaken in this light. Chapter 3 defines the lateral boundaries of folly, where it blends into madness. In the context of Renaissance psychology sixteenth century medical works are analysed, including Boorde's 'Breviary of Healthe', Barrough's 'Method of Physicke' and Elyot's 'Castel of Helth'. Blurring between madness and sin, the negative judgments on the mad as demon-possessed, and the biblical models from which such judgments largely arose give alternative perspectives on madness and its relation to folly. Chapters 4-6 look at three Shakespearean comedies showing the development of a primarily Erasmian view of folly. This moves from overt references in 'Love's Labour's Lost' to natural folly, the folly of love and theological folly, through carnivalesque aspects of folly and madness in 'Twelfth Night', to an embedded notion of folly which influences and affects the darker comedy of 'Measure for Measure'. Chapter 7 considers satires of Hall, Marston and Guilpin, and looks at Jonson's Humour plays in this context. 'Volpone' and 'Epicoene', and 'The Alchemist' and 'Bartholomew Fair' are discussed in pairs, showing the softening of Jonson's attitude to folly, and his increasing representation of Erasmian folly reaching its full expression in 'Bartholomew Fair'.'New-found methods and . . . compounds strange' : reading the 1640 Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent.http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3461
The second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, titled Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-Speare, Gent, and published by stationer John Benson in 1640, was a text typical of its time. In an effort to update the old-fashioned sonnet sequence in which its contents had first reached print, the compiler or editor of the Bensonian version rearranged the poems from the earlier quarto text, adding titles and other texts thought to have been written by or about the sonnets’ author. The immediate reception of the 1640 Poems was a quiet one, but the volume’s contents and structure served as the foundation for more than half of the editions of Shakespeare’s sonnets produced in the eighteenth century. In part due to the textual instability created by the presence of two disparate arrangements of the collection, Shakespeare’s sonnets served only as supplements to the preferred Shakespearean canon from 1709 to 1790. When, at the end of the century, the sonnets finally entered the canon in Edmond Malone’s groundbreaking edition of the plays and poems together, Benson’s version was quickly overshadowed by the earlier text, which was preferred as both more authorial and, due to Malone’s careful critical readings, autobiographical. In contrast to the many scholars since Malone who have overlooked or denigrated the Poems of 1640, this thesis studies the second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets within the framework of the early modern culture that produced it, arguing that Benson’s edition provides valuable evidence about the editorial habits and literary preferences of the individuals and culture for which it was originally intended.
2012-11-30T00:00:00ZAcker, Faith D.The second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, titled Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-Speare, Gent, and published by stationer John Benson in 1640, was a text typical of its time. In an effort to update the old-fashioned sonnet sequence in which its contents had first reached print, the compiler or editor of the Bensonian version rearranged the poems from the earlier quarto text, adding titles and other texts thought to have been written by or about the sonnets’ author. The immediate reception of the 1640 Poems was a quiet one, but the volume’s contents and structure served as the foundation for more than half of the editions of Shakespeare’s sonnets produced in the eighteenth century. In part due to the textual instability created by the presence of two disparate arrangements of the collection, Shakespeare’s sonnets served only as supplements to the preferred Shakespearean canon from 1709 to 1790. When, at the end of the century, the sonnets finally entered the canon in Edmond Malone’s groundbreaking edition of the plays and poems together, Benson’s version was quickly overshadowed by the earlier text, which was preferred as both more authorial and, due to Malone’s careful critical readings, autobiographical. In contrast to the many scholars since Malone who have overlooked or denigrated the Poems of 1640, this thesis studies the second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets within the framework of the early modern culture that produced it, arguing that Benson’s edition provides valuable evidence about the editorial habits and literary preferences of the individuals and culture for which it was originally intended."Making room" for one's own : Virginia Woolf and technology of placehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3458
This thesis offers an analysis of selected works by Virginia Woolf through the theoretical framework of technology of place. The term “technology”, meaning both a finished product and an ongoing production process, a mode of concealment and unconcealment in Martin Heidegger’s sense, is used as part of this thesis’s argument that place can be understood through constant negotiations of concrete place perceived through the senses, a concept based on the Heideggerian notion of “earth”, and abstract place perceived in the imagination, a concept based on the Heideggerian notion of “world”. The term “technology of place”, coined by Irvin C. Schick in The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alteritist Discourse (1999), is appropriated and re-interpreted as part of this thesis’s adoption and adaptation of Woolf’s notion of ideal biographical writing as an amalgamation of “granite” biographical facts and “rainbow” internal life. Woolf’s granite and rainbow dichotomy is used as a foreground to this thesis’s proposed theoretical framework, through which questions of space/place can be examined. My analysis of Flush (1933) demonstrates that place is a technology which can be taken at face value and, at the same time, appropriated to challenge the ideology of its construction. My analysis of Orlando (1928) demonstrates that Woolf’s idea of utopia exemplifies the technological “coming together”, in Heidegger’s term, of concrete social reality and abstract artistic fantasy. My analysis of The Years (1937) demonstrates that sense of place as well as sense of identity is ambivalent and constantly changing like the weather, reflecting place’s Janus-faced function as both concealment and unconcealment. Lastly, my analysis of Woolf’s selected essays and marginalia illustrates that writing can serve as a revolutionary “place-making” technology through which one can mentally “make room” for (re-)imagining the lives of “the obscure”, often placed in oblivion throughout the course of history.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZSriratana, VeritaThis thesis offers an analysis of selected works by Virginia Woolf through the theoretical framework of technology of place. The term “technology”, meaning both a finished product and an ongoing production process, a mode of concealment and unconcealment in Martin Heidegger’s sense, is used as part of this thesis’s argument that place can be understood through constant negotiations of concrete place perceived through the senses, a concept based on the Heideggerian notion of “earth”, and abstract place perceived in the imagination, a concept based on the Heideggerian notion of “world”. The term “technology of place”, coined by Irvin C. Schick in The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alteritist Discourse (1999), is appropriated and re-interpreted as part of this thesis’s adoption and adaptation of Woolf’s notion of ideal biographical writing as an amalgamation of “granite” biographical facts and “rainbow” internal life. Woolf’s granite and rainbow dichotomy is used as a foreground to this thesis’s proposed theoretical framework, through which questions of space/place can be examined. My analysis of Flush (1933) demonstrates that place is a technology which can be taken at face value and, at the same time, appropriated to challenge the ideology of its construction. My analysis of Orlando (1928) demonstrates that Woolf’s idea of utopia exemplifies the technological “coming together”, in Heidegger’s term, of concrete social reality and abstract artistic fantasy. My analysis of The Years (1937) demonstrates that sense of place as well as sense of identity is ambivalent and constantly changing like the weather, reflecting place’s Janus-faced function as both concealment and unconcealment. Lastly, my analysis of Woolf’s selected essays and marginalia illustrates that writing can serve as a revolutionary “place-making” technology through which one can mentally “make room” for (re-)imagining the lives of “the obscure”, often placed in oblivion throughout the course of history.Trauma and representation in women's diaries of the Second World Warhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3347
As a transnational contribution to the study of life-writing and to the understanding of women’s war experiences, ‘Trauma and Representation in Women’s Diaries of the Second World War’ examines women’s war diaries from the point of view of trauma studies. It provides new readings of established texts, such as Frances Partridge’s A Pacifist’s War and Etty Hillesum’s An Interrupted Life, alongside previously unexamined archival diaries and several recently published diaries that have received little critical attention to date. Through close reading, it analyses how traumatic registers, ranging from mild to severe, manifest in both the genesis and subject matter of women’s diaries.
The Introduction discusses the post-war cultural imperatives that have worked to repress women’s accounts of the Second World War, particularly those which describe devastation in the domestic sphere. It situates diary writing contextually within the field of autobiographical writing, exploring the characteristics of this contested genre and questioning the possibilities it opens up for the conveyance of traumatic experience. Finally, it provides a brief historiography of trauma studies, focusing on the complicated relationship between trauma and modern warfare and the difficulties traumatic experience poses for testimony.
In the ensuing chapters, my analyses demonstrate the various ways war trauma manifests in women’s diaries. Chapter One examines the physiological and psychological costs of repeated exposure to violent situations such as bomb raids and rape through a combination of psychoanalytic and neurobiological discourses on trauma. Chapter Two discusses diaries that were kept at a relative distance from violent conflict, exploring women’s affective responses to the changes in their lives that occurred during wartime through theories of depression and melancholia. Finally, Chapter Three constitutes a final analysis of the relationship between trauma and representation, analysing women’s descriptions of both the physical and societal abjection that proliferated towards the end of the war.
2012-11-30T00:00:00ZRichardson, Margaret RavenelAs a transnational contribution to the study of life-writing and to the understanding of women’s war experiences, ‘Trauma and Representation in Women’s Diaries of the Second World War’ examines women’s war diaries from the point of view of trauma studies. It provides new readings of established texts, such as Frances Partridge’s A Pacifist’s War and Etty Hillesum’s An Interrupted Life, alongside previously unexamined archival diaries and several recently published diaries that have received little critical attention to date. Through close reading, it analyses how traumatic registers, ranging from mild to severe, manifest in both the genesis and subject matter of women’s diaries.
The Introduction discusses the post-war cultural imperatives that have worked to repress women’s accounts of the Second World War, particularly those which describe devastation in the domestic sphere. It situates diary writing contextually within the field of autobiographical writing, exploring the characteristics of this contested genre and questioning the possibilities it opens up for the conveyance of traumatic experience. Finally, it provides a brief historiography of trauma studies, focusing on the complicated relationship between trauma and modern warfare and the difficulties traumatic experience poses for testimony.
In the ensuing chapters, my analyses demonstrate the various ways war trauma manifests in women’s diaries. Chapter One examines the physiological and psychological costs of repeated exposure to violent situations such as bomb raids and rape through a combination of psychoanalytic and neurobiological discourses on trauma. Chapter Two discusses diaries that were kept at a relative distance from violent conflict, exploring women’s affective responses to the changes in their lives that occurred during wartime through theories of depression and melancholia. Finally, Chapter Three constitutes a final analysis of the relationship between trauma and representation, analysing women’s descriptions of both the physical and societal abjection that proliferated towards the end of the war.Excavating the borders of literary Anglo-Saxonism in nineteenth-century Britain and Australiahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3337
Comparing nineteenth-century British and Australian Anglo-Saxonist literature enables a "decentered" exploration of Anglo-Saxonism's intersections with national, imperial, and colonial discourses, challenging assumption that this discourse was an uncritical vehicle of English nationalism and British manifest destiny. Far from reflecting a stable imperial center, evocations of 'ancient Englishness' in British literature were polyvalent and self-contesting, while in Australian literature they offered a response to colonization and emerging knowledge about the vast age of Indigenous Australian cultures.
2013-12-01T00:00:00ZD'Arcens, LouiseJones, ChrisComparing nineteenth-century British and Australian Anglo-Saxonist literature enables a "decentered" exploration of Anglo-Saxonism's intersections with national, imperial, and colonial discourses, challenging assumption that this discourse was an uncritical vehicle of English nationalism and British manifest destiny. Far from reflecting a stable imperial center, evocations of 'ancient Englishness' in British literature were polyvalent and self-contesting, while in Australian literature they offered a response to colonization and emerging knowledge about the vast age of Indigenous Australian cultures.While crowding memories came : Edwin Morgan, Old English and nostalgiahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3319
2012-01-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisRecycling Anglo-Saxon poetry : Richard Wilbur's 'Junk' and a self studyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3291
2012-12-20T00:00:00ZJones, Chris"It's a question of words, therefore" : becoming-animal in Michel Faber’s Under the Skinhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3242
This essay reads Michel Faber’s debut novel Under the Skin (2000) in the context of contemporary philosophical and literary critical debates about the ethical relation between human and nonhuman animals. It argues that Faber’s text engages with, but deconstructs, the traditional division of ‘no language, no subjectivity’ by a heretical act of renaming human beings as ‘vodsels,’ and by an extensive process of figurative transformation. The paper then proceeds to a sustained analysis of the main character in the novel, Isserley, in the light of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s theories of becoming-animal, the anomalous, and becoming-molecular. The paper concludes that the novel engages in the limitrophy – Derrida’s neologism – required to negotiate the abyssal limit between the human and nonhuman animal.
2011-03-01T00:00:00ZDillon, Sarah JoanneThis essay reads Michel Faber’s debut novel Under the Skin (2000) in the context of contemporary philosophical and literary critical debates about the ethical relation between human and nonhuman animals. It argues that Faber’s text engages with, but deconstructs, the traditional division of ‘no language, no subjectivity’ by a heretical act of renaming human beings as ‘vodsels,’ and by an extensive process of figurative transformation. The paper then proceeds to a sustained analysis of the main character in the novel, Isserley, in the light of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s theories of becoming-animal, the anomalous, and becoming-molecular. The paper concludes that the novel engages in the limitrophy – Derrida’s neologism – required to negotiate the abyssal limit between the human and nonhuman animal.Re-inscribing De Quincey's palimpsest : the significance of the palimpsest in contemporary literary and cultural studieshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3241
In 1845, Thomas De Quincey inaugurated the substantive concept of 'the palimpsest'. Since then, this concept has frequently occurred in creative, critical and theoretical texts across the fields of literature, philosophy and cultural studies. This article brings together some of those diverse texts in order to draw attention to how the palimpsest is reinscribed in and by a range of contemporary critical discourses, including deconstruction, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, feminism and queer theory. Moreover, the palimpsest is crucial to these discourses' rethinking of such key contemporary issues as the subject, time, history, culture, gender and sexuality, and the processes of reading and writing themselves. The movement of elucidation here is reciprocal and simultaneous: the palimpsest reifies and aids the understanding of current ideas and concepts; at the same time, those ideas enable a reinscription of the palimpsest that sophisticates our understanding of its complex structure and logic.
2005-09-01T00:00:00ZDillon, Sarah JoanneIn 1845, Thomas De Quincey inaugurated the substantive concept of 'the palimpsest'. Since then, this concept has frequently occurred in creative, critical and theoretical texts across the fields of literature, philosophy and cultural studies. This article brings together some of those diverse texts in order to draw attention to how the palimpsest is reinscribed in and by a range of contemporary critical discourses, including deconstruction, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, feminism and queer theory. Moreover, the palimpsest is crucial to these discourses' rethinking of such key contemporary issues as the subject, time, history, culture, gender and sexuality, and the processes of reading and writing themselves. The movement of elucidation here is reciprocal and simultaneous: the palimpsest reifies and aids the understanding of current ideas and concepts; at the same time, those ideas enable a reinscription of the palimpsest that sophisticates our understanding of its complex structure and logic.Palimpsesting : reading and writing lives in H.D.'s 'Murex: War and Postwar London (circa A. D. 1916-1926)'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3240
2007-01-01T00:00:00ZDillon, Sarah JoanneChaotic narrative : complexity, causality, time and autopoiesis in David Mitchell’s Ghostwrittenhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3239
David Mitchell is one of Britain’s foremost contemporary writers who is only just becoming the subject of academic attention. Focusing on his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), this essay argues that the science of complexity provides a language with which to account for the novel’s complex interconnecting structure. The novel is defined as an autopoietic system according to the theories of Maturana and Varela and its engagement with the issues of causality and time explored in relation to the work of Ilya Prigogine. The paper concludes that Ghostwritten is a complex narrative system that responds to the intimate connection between the macroscopic and the microscopic in the contemporary world.
2011-03-10T00:00:00ZDillon, Sarah JoanneDavid Mitchell is one of Britain’s foremost contemporary writers who is only just becoming the subject of academic attention. Focusing on his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), this essay argues that the science of complexity provides a language with which to account for the novel’s complex interconnecting structure. The novel is defined as an autopoietic system according to the theories of Maturana and Varela and its engagement with the issues of causality and time explored in relation to the work of Ilya Prigogine. The paper concludes that Ghostwritten is a complex narrative system that responds to the intimate connection between the macroscopic and the microscopic in the contemporary world.Life after Derrida : anacoluthia and the agrammaticality of followinghttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3236
Written on Derrida's "'Le Parjure,' Perhaps: Storytelling and Lying," this essay takes the concept of the anacoluthon from Derrida's text (as lie has done from J. Hillis Miller, as he did from Proust) and-commenting on the figure of the woman in this male lineage-further invents the concept of the anacoluthon by demonstrating]low its formal linguistic definition provides a model for the event of reading and writing of thinking-that Derrida so admires in Hillis Miller's work and practices in his own. By employing this same reading practice in its own thinking, this essay does not respond to Derrida's death in mourning, nor in thinking about mourning, but in the memory of thought. Produced out of Derrida's work, the essay remains faithful to him only by simultaneously being faithful and unfaithful, thereby enacting the agrammaticality of following represented in and by the anacoluthon.
2006-01-01T00:00:00ZDillon, Sarah JoanneWritten on Derrida's "'Le Parjure,' Perhaps: Storytelling and Lying," this essay takes the concept of the anacoluthon from Derrida's text (as lie has done from J. Hillis Miller, as he did from Proust) and-commenting on the figure of the woman in this male lineage-further invents the concept of the anacoluthon by demonstrating]low its formal linguistic definition provides a model for the event of reading and writing of thinking-that Derrida so admires in Hillis Miller's work and practices in his own. By employing this same reading practice in its own thinking, this essay does not respond to Derrida's death in mourning, nor in thinking about mourning, but in the memory of thought. Produced out of Derrida's work, the essay remains faithful to him only by simultaneously being faithful and unfaithful, thereby enacting the agrammaticality of following represented in and by the anacoluthon.'And the Word was made flesh': the problem of the Incarnation in seventeenth-century devotional poetryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3185
In using the doctrine of the Incarnation as a lens to approach the devotional poetry of seventeenth-century Britain, ‘“And the Word was made flesh”: The Problem of the Incarnation in Seventeenth-Century Devotional Poetry’ finds this central doctrine of Christianity to be a destabilising force in the religious controversies of the day. The fact that Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and Puritans all hold to the same belief in the Incarnation means that there is a central point of orthodoxy which allows poets from differing sects of Christianity to write devotional verse that is equally relevant for all churches. This creates a situation in which the more the writer focuses on the incarnate Jesus, the less ecclesiastically distinct their writings become and the more aware the reader is of how difficult it is to categorise poets by the sects of the day.
The introduction historicises the doctrine of the Incarnation in Early Modern Europe through presenting statements of belief for the doctrine from reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldryk Zwingli in addition to the Roman Catholic decrees of the Council of Trent and the Church of England’s ‘39 Articles’. Additionally, there is a further focus on the Church of England provided through considering the writings of Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes amongst others.
In the ensuing chapters, the devotional poetry of John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, and Richard Crashaw is discussed in regards to its use of the Incarnation and incarnational imagery in orthodox though diverse manners. Their use of words to appropriate the Word, and their embrace of the flesh as they approach the divine shows the elastic and problematic nature of a religion founded upon God becoming human and the mystery that the Church allows it to remain.
2012-05-01T00:00:00ZSharpe, Jesse DavidIn using the doctrine of the Incarnation as a lens to approach the devotional poetry of seventeenth-century Britain, ‘“And the Word was made flesh”: The Problem of the Incarnation in Seventeenth-Century Devotional Poetry’ finds this central doctrine of Christianity to be a destabilising force in the religious controversies of the day. The fact that Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and Puritans all hold to the same belief in the Incarnation means that there is a central point of orthodoxy which allows poets from differing sects of Christianity to write devotional verse that is equally relevant for all churches. This creates a situation in which the more the writer focuses on the incarnate Jesus, the less ecclesiastically distinct their writings become and the more aware the reader is of how difficult it is to categorise poets by the sects of the day.
The introduction historicises the doctrine of the Incarnation in Early Modern Europe through presenting statements of belief for the doctrine from reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldryk Zwingli in addition to the Roman Catholic decrees of the Council of Trent and the Church of England’s ‘39 Articles’. Additionally, there is a further focus on the Church of England provided through considering the writings of Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes amongst others.
In the ensuing chapters, the devotional poetry of John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, and Richard Crashaw is discussed in regards to its use of the Incarnation and incarnational imagery in orthodox though diverse manners. Their use of words to appropriate the Word, and their embrace of the flesh as they approach the divine shows the elastic and problematic nature of a religion founded upon God becoming human and the mystery that the Church allows it to remain.Writing and re-writing the Middle Easthttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3166
This thesis is comprised of a critical component and a creative component. The creative component consists of a portfolio of creative writing drawn from a fictionalized memoir, and the critical component consists of three interconnected chapters analyzing the creative component.
The creative component, titled The Accidental Peacemaker, has been written alongside my recently published (and related) book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment. It is a satirical, first-person fictionalized memoir about how the Middle East conflict manifests in North America, told from the point of view of a North American Jewish narrator.
The critical component contextualizes the creative component by situating it within the disparate genres of creative writing that inform it, and by exploring its descent from them. Together, the three critical chapters argue that the creative component stands at the intersection of life writing, North American Jewish Writing, and humourous political writing. The first critical chapter, on life writing, examines the overlaps between fiction and memoir, and argues, in part, that from a creative writer’s point of view, a sharp distinction is challenging to pinpoint. The second critical chapter, on North American Jewish writing, explores some efforts that have been made to determine what characteristics identify “Jewish writing,” and which identifying marks are germane to this particular piece of creative work. The third critical chapter, on humourous political writing, argues that humour and politics are particularly intertwined in North American writing and media today, and that by using humour and first-person life writing, an author can probe into sensitive political terrain without as much risk of needlessly offending as they might have if they used other approaches.
2012-06-19T00:00:00ZLevey, GregoryThis thesis is comprised of a critical component and a creative component. The creative component consists of a portfolio of creative writing drawn from a fictionalized memoir, and the critical component consists of three interconnected chapters analyzing the creative component.
The creative component, titled The Accidental Peacemaker, has been written alongside my recently published (and related) book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment. It is a satirical, first-person fictionalized memoir about how the Middle East conflict manifests in North America, told from the point of view of a North American Jewish narrator.
The critical component contextualizes the creative component by situating it within the disparate genres of creative writing that inform it, and by exploring its descent from them. Together, the three critical chapters argue that the creative component stands at the intersection of life writing, North American Jewish Writing, and humourous political writing. The first critical chapter, on life writing, examines the overlaps between fiction and memoir, and argues, in part, that from a creative writer’s point of view, a sharp distinction is challenging to pinpoint. The second critical chapter, on North American Jewish writing, explores some efforts that have been made to determine what characteristics identify “Jewish writing,” and which identifying marks are germane to this particular piece of creative work. The third critical chapter, on humourous political writing, argues that humour and politics are particularly intertwined in North American writing and media today, and that by using humour and first-person life writing, an author can probe into sensitive political terrain without as much risk of needlessly offending as they might have if they used other approaches.'[T]he language of self' : strategies of subjectivity in the novels of Don DeLillohttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3148
‘[T]he language of self’: Strategies of Subjectivity in the Novels of Don DeLillo’ explores the
manner in which both self and society are constructed in the writer’s longer fiction. Divided
into two sections, the first, entitled Dasein, examines the way in which the language of self
forms a Mobius strip comprised of two opposing yet omnipresent urges: that of connection
and isolation. Coining the term enunciation, the thesis describes the manner in which each
character’s subjectivity is an historically contingent attempt at negotiating this tension
between isolation and connection, self and other. The second section of the thesis, entitled
'das Man', then proceeds to explore the impact of this language of self within a wider social
context, examining the manner in which it interacts with other linguistic and quasi-linguistic
binaries – such as language, image, capital, waste, power and terror – likewise
characterised as adopting the form of a Mobius strip. Through such a methodology, the
second section of the thesis is thus able to explore the interaction and shared genesis of
public and private conceptions of subjectivity, illustrating how it is this same tension
between connection and isolation which governs the form that social interactions and
institutions adopt in the novels of Don DeLillo.
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZPass, Phillip‘[T]he language of self’: Strategies of Subjectivity in the Novels of Don DeLillo’ explores the
manner in which both self and society are constructed in the writer’s longer fiction. Divided
into two sections, the first, entitled Dasein, examines the way in which the language of self
forms a Mobius strip comprised of two opposing yet omnipresent urges: that of connection
and isolation. Coining the term enunciation, the thesis describes the manner in which each
character’s subjectivity is an historically contingent attempt at negotiating this tension
between isolation and connection, self and other. The second section of the thesis, entitled
'das Man', then proceeds to explore the impact of this language of self within a wider social
context, examining the manner in which it interacts with other linguistic and quasi-linguistic
binaries – such as language, image, capital, waste, power and terror – likewise
characterised as adopting the form of a Mobius strip. Through such a methodology, the
second section of the thesis is thus able to explore the interaction and shared genesis of
public and private conceptions of subjectivity, illustrating how it is this same tension
between connection and isolation which governs the form that social interactions and
institutions adopt in the novels of Don DeLillo.The transfiguring event : phenomenological readings of Ian McEwan's late fictionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3133
This thesis performs a phenomenological reading of Ian McEwan’s later novels,
using the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in particular. Chapter One examines
fundamental concepts in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology—perception, embodiment,
inter-subjectivity, and ambiguity in Enduring Love. It also uses Levinas’ idea of ‘the other’
to tease apart the complexities of the novel’s love triangle. Chapter Two examines
Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on history and memory and their relation to the self in Black Dogs.
The phenomenological understanding of these terms allows us to re-evaluate the novel’s
status as ‘memoir’. Chapter Three presents Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on perception and
embodiment to explicate the phenomenon of misperception in Atonement. The reading
focuses on the ambiguous, problematic nature of perception and the important role the
body plays in establishing the ‘truth’ of a traumatic event. Chapter Four investigates
being-towards-death in Amsterdam, using both Heidegger’s writings and Merleau-Ponty’s
concept of ‘co-existence’. The chapter also highlights Amsterdam’s portrayal of
authenticity and the effects of non-representation on the reader. Chapter Five examines
On Chesil Beach’s depiction of sexuality and language alongside Merleau-Ponty’s writings
on sexual being, the body, and expression. It illustrates that the Merleau-Pontian
understanding of bodily and linguistic gesture provides insight into why McEwan’s text
focuses on both sexuality and language and how the failure of one often leads to a failure
of both. It focuses on the various ‘misreadings’ in On Chesil Beach. Chapter Six examines
Saturday and its depiction of being-with-others after 9/11. Merleau-Ponty’s
phenomenology articulates the intertwined relationship of subjective and social realities
portrayed in the novel. Saturday exemplifies Merleau-Ponty’s argument that literature can
show the true potential of phenomenological philosophy. By undertaking a
phenomenological-literary study that emphasises the unveiling potential of McEwan’s
novels, this thesis illustrates one way that literature, like philosophy, ‘consists in
relearning to look at the world’ (Phenomenology of Perception 2002, xxiii).
2012-01-01T00:00:00ZAndrews, Christina ChandlerThis thesis performs a phenomenological reading of Ian McEwan’s later novels,
using the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in particular. Chapter One examines
fundamental concepts in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology—perception, embodiment,
inter-subjectivity, and ambiguity in Enduring Love. It also uses Levinas’ idea of ‘the other’
to tease apart the complexities of the novel’s love triangle. Chapter Two examines
Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on history and memory and their relation to the self in Black Dogs.
The phenomenological understanding of these terms allows us to re-evaluate the novel’s
status as ‘memoir’. Chapter Three presents Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on perception and
embodiment to explicate the phenomenon of misperception in Atonement. The reading
focuses on the ambiguous, problematic nature of perception and the important role the
body plays in establishing the ‘truth’ of a traumatic event. Chapter Four investigates
being-towards-death in Amsterdam, using both Heidegger’s writings and Merleau-Ponty’s
concept of ‘co-existence’. The chapter also highlights Amsterdam’s portrayal of
authenticity and the effects of non-representation on the reader. Chapter Five examines
On Chesil Beach’s depiction of sexuality and language alongside Merleau-Ponty’s writings
on sexual being, the body, and expression. It illustrates that the Merleau-Pontian
understanding of bodily and linguistic gesture provides insight into why McEwan’s text
focuses on both sexuality and language and how the failure of one often leads to a failure
of both. It focuses on the various ‘misreadings’ in On Chesil Beach. Chapter Six examines
Saturday and its depiction of being-with-others after 9/11. Merleau-Ponty’s
phenomenology articulates the intertwined relationship of subjective and social realities
portrayed in the novel. Saturday exemplifies Merleau-Ponty’s argument that literature can
show the true potential of phenomenological philosophy. By undertaking a
phenomenological-literary study that emphasises the unveiling potential of McEwan’s
novels, this thesis illustrates one way that literature, like philosophy, ‘consists in
relearning to look at the world’ (Phenomenology of Perception 2002, xxiii).T.S. Eliot among the Metaphysicalshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3123
Eliot’s admiration for the poetry of the seventeenth century is well known. However, the
several documents that explore the subject (thinly scattered across decades) fail to constitute
a full account. Drawing on manuscript and print sources, and tracing particularly Eliot’s
prose poetics, this thesis redresses the scholarly need for a nuanced account of Eliot’s role
among the Metaphysical poets.
The relationship ran in both directions, most famously in Eliot’s championing of the
poets and his urging that they find a new readership. His part in the revival of Metaphysical
poetry, though, has been greatly exaggerated and the record is here faithfully adjusted. He
was not in any way responsible for that revival, though he is its most important product, as is
shown by a careful reconstruction of turn-of-the-century transcontinental publishing and
reception.
Eliot’s criticism tells its own, largely unexplored story about the Metaphysicals and
their influence on his critical and poetic sensibility. Most scholars, for instance, know that
Eliot loved Donne, but few know the origin of that interest, let alone its brief nature or the
personal reasons that drove him to appreciate the poet’s audacity. Most also know the
Modernist dicta of Tradition, objective correlative and the dissociation of sensibility, but not
the fact that each owes something to Eliot’s thinking about Donne. Engaging with Harvard
class notes, under-consulted textbooks and a close study of Eliot’s articles from the 1910s,
two separate chapters investigate his education and early prose, along with their delicate
dance between impersonality and confessional criticism.
1921-1926 marks a crucial stage in Eliot’s writing, both for his poetry and his
criticism. The Metaphysicals provide the clearest barometer of that change as well as the
space where he approached conversion. This thesis is the first to trace the poets throughout
Eliot’s criticism, one of the first to engage with his Metaphysical-themed Clark Lectures, and
the first to move far past Eliot’s conversion, interpreting George Herbert as typical of his
late mindset. In 1961 Eliot claimed no one had been as influenced by the Metaphysical poets
as he had been. What this thesis offers is not only a more nuanced portrait of that influence
but also a glimpse into the educational, critical and reading cultures of the early 1900s.
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZGray, WillEliot’s admiration for the poetry of the seventeenth century is well known. However, the
several documents that explore the subject (thinly scattered across decades) fail to constitute
a full account. Drawing on manuscript and print sources, and tracing particularly Eliot’s
prose poetics, this thesis redresses the scholarly need for a nuanced account of Eliot’s role
among the Metaphysical poets.
The relationship ran in both directions, most famously in Eliot’s championing of the
poets and his urging that they find a new readership. His part in the revival of Metaphysical
poetry, though, has been greatly exaggerated and the record is here faithfully adjusted. He
was not in any way responsible for that revival, though he is its most important product, as is
shown by a careful reconstruction of turn-of-the-century transcontinental publishing and
reception.
Eliot’s criticism tells its own, largely unexplored story about the Metaphysicals and
their influence on his critical and poetic sensibility. Most scholars, for instance, know that
Eliot loved Donne, but few know the origin of that interest, let alone its brief nature or the
personal reasons that drove him to appreciate the poet’s audacity. Most also know the
Modernist dicta of Tradition, objective correlative and the dissociation of sensibility, but not
the fact that each owes something to Eliot’s thinking about Donne. Engaging with Harvard
class notes, under-consulted textbooks and a close study of Eliot’s articles from the 1910s,
two separate chapters investigate his education and early prose, along with their delicate
dance between impersonality and confessional criticism.
1921-1926 marks a crucial stage in Eliot’s writing, both for his poetry and his
criticism. The Metaphysicals provide the clearest barometer of that change as well as the
space where he approached conversion. This thesis is the first to trace the poets throughout
Eliot’s criticism, one of the first to engage with his Metaphysical-themed Clark Lectures, and
the first to move far past Eliot’s conversion, interpreting George Herbert as typical of his
late mindset. In 1961 Eliot claimed no one had been as influenced by the Metaphysical poets
as he had been. What this thesis offers is not only a more nuanced portrait of that influence
but also a glimpse into the educational, critical and reading cultures of the early 1900s.Narrative structure and philosophical debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fatalistehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3113
The aim of the present thesis is to analyse how the narrative affects the various philosophical debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste. Contrary to what one expects from a philosophical novel, Sterne and Diderot do not impose upon the reader an authorial and authoritative discourse. Dominant discourses are constantly challenged and contradicted. The philosophical debates in both novels remain open and are left without a conclusion. The author’s voice is but one amongst many others, and it is the narrative which maintains the dialogue between them by preventing one particular voice from invalidating the others. My argument hinges on Bakhtinian dialogism, which can be defined as the presence of interacting voices and views. In Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste, dialogism occurs through the narrative structure allowing for the confrontation of the contradictory discourses in the philosophical debates, and enabling them to engage in dialogue, instead of establishing the authorial voice as the sole valid discourse in the text. Through those contradictions, the philosophical content takes on a different form, that of a refusal of systematic discourse. No dogmatic view is forced upon the reader. Sterne and Diderot do not offer a solution to the various philosophical questions debated in their novels. However, they do offer a philosophical method whereby the confrontation of contradictory ideas creates a dynamic for the pursuit of truth.
2012-06-19T00:00:00ZWhiskin, Margaux ElizabethThe aim of the present thesis is to analyse how the narrative affects the various philosophical debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste. Contrary to what one expects from a philosophical novel, Sterne and Diderot do not impose upon the reader an authorial and authoritative discourse. Dominant discourses are constantly challenged and contradicted. The philosophical debates in both novels remain open and are left without a conclusion. The author’s voice is but one amongst many others, and it is the narrative which maintains the dialogue between them by preventing one particular voice from invalidating the others. My argument hinges on Bakhtinian dialogism, which can be defined as the presence of interacting voices and views. In Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste, dialogism occurs through the narrative structure allowing for the confrontation of the contradictory discourses in the philosophical debates, and enabling them to engage in dialogue, instead of establishing the authorial voice as the sole valid discourse in the text. Through those contradictions, the philosophical content takes on a different form, that of a refusal of systematic discourse. No dogmatic view is forced upon the reader. Sterne and Diderot do not offer a solution to the various philosophical questions debated in their novels. However, they do offer a philosophical method whereby the confrontation of contradictory ideas creates a dynamic for the pursuit of truth.'Paper gypsies' : representations of the gypsy figure in British literature, c. 1780-1870http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3110
Representations of the Gypsies and their lifestyle were widespread in British culture in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This thesis analyzes the varying literary and artistic responses to the Gypsy figure in the period circa 1780-1870. Addressing not only well-known works by William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, John Clare, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot, but also lesser-known or neglected works by Gilbert White, Hannah More, George Crabbe and Samuel Rogers, unpublished archival material from Princess Victoria’s journals, and a range of articles from the periodical press, this thesis examines how the figure of the Gypsy was used to explore differing conceptions of the landscape, identity and freedom, as well as the authoritative discourses of law, religion and science.
The influence of William Cowper’s Gypsy episode in Book One of The Task is shown to be profound, and its effect on ensuing literary representations of the Gypsy is an example of my interpretation of Wim Willem’s term ‘paper Gypsies’: the idea that literary Gypsies are often textual (re)constructions of other writers’ work, creating a shared literary, cultural and artistic heritage.
A focus on the picturesque and the Gypsies’ role within that genre is a strong theme throughout this thesis. The ambiguity of picturesque Gypsy representations challenges the authority of the leisured viewer, provoking complex responses that either seek to contain the Gypsy’s disruptive potential or demonstrate the figure’s refusal to be controlled. An examination of texts alongside contemporary paintings and sketches of Gypsies by Princess Victoria, George Morland, Thomas Gainsborough, J. M. W. Turner, John Constable and John Everett Millais, elucidates the significance of the Gypsies as ambiguous ciphers in both literature and art.
2011-11-30T00:00:00ZDrayton, Alexandra L.Representations of the Gypsies and their lifestyle were widespread in British culture in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This thesis analyzes the varying literary and artistic responses to the Gypsy figure in the period circa 1780-1870. Addressing not only well-known works by William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, John Clare, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot, but also lesser-known or neglected works by Gilbert White, Hannah More, George Crabbe and Samuel Rogers, unpublished archival material from Princess Victoria’s journals, and a range of articles from the periodical press, this thesis examines how the figure of the Gypsy was used to explore differing conceptions of the landscape, identity and freedom, as well as the authoritative discourses of law, religion and science.
The influence of William Cowper’s Gypsy episode in Book One of The Task is shown to be profound, and its effect on ensuing literary representations of the Gypsy is an example of my interpretation of Wim Willem’s term ‘paper Gypsies’: the idea that literary Gypsies are often textual (re)constructions of other writers’ work, creating a shared literary, cultural and artistic heritage.
A focus on the picturesque and the Gypsies’ role within that genre is a strong theme throughout this thesis. The ambiguity of picturesque Gypsy representations challenges the authority of the leisured viewer, provoking complex responses that either seek to contain the Gypsy’s disruptive potential or demonstrate the figure’s refusal to be controlled. An examination of texts alongside contemporary paintings and sketches of Gypsies by Princess Victoria, George Morland, Thomas Gainsborough, J. M. W. Turner, John Constable and John Everett Millais, elucidates the significance of the Gypsies as ambiguous ciphers in both literature and art.Creolization and the collective unconscious : Locating the originality of art in Wilson Harris' Jonestown, The Mask of the Beggar and The Ghost of Memoryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3065
2008-01-01T00:00:00ZBurns, Lorna MargaretBecoming Bertha : Virtual difference and repetition in postcolonial 'writing back', a Deleuzian reading of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Seahttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3064
Critical responses to Wide Sargasso Sea have seized upon Rhys's novel as an exemplary model of writing back. Looking beyond the actual repetitions which recall Brontë’s text, I explore Rhys's novel as an expression of virtual difference and becomings that exemplify Deleuze's three syntheses of time. Elaborating the processes of becoming that Deleuze's third synthesis depicts, Antoinette's fate emerges not as a violence against an original identity. Rather, what the reader witnesses is a series of becomings or masks, some of which are validated, some of which are not, and it is in the rejection of certain masks, forcing Antoinette to become-Bertha, that the greatest violence lies.
2010-03-01T00:00:00ZBurns, Lorna MargaretCritical responses to Wide Sargasso Sea have seized upon Rhys's novel as an exemplary model of writing back. Looking beyond the actual repetitions which recall Brontë’s text, I explore Rhys's novel as an expression of virtual difference and becomings that exemplify Deleuze's three syntheses of time. Elaborating the processes of becoming that Deleuze's third synthesis depicts, Antoinette's fate emerges not as a violence against an original identity. Rather, what the reader witnesses is a series of becomings or masks, some of which are validated, some of which are not, and it is in the rejection of certain masks, forcing Antoinette to become-Bertha, that the greatest violence lies.Seamus Heaney and the adequacy of poetry : a study of his prose poeticshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/3026
Seamus Heaney’s prose poetics return repeatedly to the adequacy of poetry, its ameliorative, restorative response to the inimical reality of life in the public domain. Drawing on manuscript as well as print sources, this thesis charts the development of this central theme, demonstrating the extent to which it threads throughout the whole of Heaney’s thought, from his earliest conceptual formation to his late cultural poetics.
Heaney’s preoccupation with this idea largely originates in his undergraduate studies where he encounters Leavis and Arnold’s accounts of poetry’s adequacy: its ameliorative cultural and spiritual function. He also inherits, from Romantic and modernist influences, two differing accounts of poetry’s relationship to reality. That conflicted inheritance engenders a crisis within Heaney’s own early theorisation of poetry’s adequacy to the violence of public life. An important period of clarification ensues, out of which emerge the dualisms of his later thought, and his emphasis on poetry’s capacity to encompass, and yet remain separate from, ‘history’. Accompanied by habitual appropriation of Christian doctrine and language, these conceptual structures increasingly assume a redemptive pattern.
By the mid-1990s, Heaney’s humanist commitment to a ‘totally adequate’ poetry has assumed a thoroughly Arnoldian character. The logical strain of his conceptual constructions—particularly the emphasis on poetry’s autonomy from history—becomes acutely apparent, revealing just how appropriate the ambivalent ideal ‘adequacy’ is. The subsequent expansion of Heaney’s poetics into a general affirmation of the arts illuminates the fiduciary character of his trust in poetry while exposing the limits of that trust: Heaney’s belief in poetry’s adequacy constitutes a humanist substitute for—indeed, an ‘afterimage’ of—Christian belief. This, finally, is the deep significance of the idea of adequacy to Heaney’s thought: it allows us to identify precisely the Arnoldian origin, the late humanist character, and the limits of his troubled trust in poetry.
2011-11-30T00:00:00ZDennison, JohnSeamus Heaney’s prose poetics return repeatedly to the adequacy of poetry, its ameliorative, restorative response to the inimical reality of life in the public domain. Drawing on manuscript as well as print sources, this thesis charts the development of this central theme, demonstrating the extent to which it threads throughout the whole of Heaney’s thought, from his earliest conceptual formation to his late cultural poetics.
Heaney’s preoccupation with this idea largely originates in his undergraduate studies where he encounters Leavis and Arnold’s accounts of poetry’s adequacy: its ameliorative cultural and spiritual function. He also inherits, from Romantic and modernist influences, two differing accounts of poetry’s relationship to reality. That conflicted inheritance engenders a crisis within Heaney’s own early theorisation of poetry’s adequacy to the violence of public life. An important period of clarification ensues, out of which emerge the dualisms of his later thought, and his emphasis on poetry’s capacity to encompass, and yet remain separate from, ‘history’. Accompanied by habitual appropriation of Christian doctrine and language, these conceptual structures increasingly assume a redemptive pattern.
By the mid-1990s, Heaney’s humanist commitment to a ‘totally adequate’ poetry has assumed a thoroughly Arnoldian character. The logical strain of his conceptual constructions—particularly the emphasis on poetry’s autonomy from history—becomes acutely apparent, revealing just how appropriate the ambivalent ideal ‘adequacy’ is. The subsequent expansion of Heaney’s poetics into a general affirmation of the arts illuminates the fiduciary character of his trust in poetry while exposing the limits of that trust: Heaney’s belief in poetry’s adequacy constitutes a humanist substitute for—indeed, an ‘afterimage’ of—Christian belief. This, finally, is the deep significance of the idea of adequacy to Heaney’s thought: it allows us to identify precisely the Arnoldian origin, the late humanist character, and the limits of his troubled trust in poetry.The theatrical portrait in eighteenth century Londonhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2982
A theatrical portrait is an image of an actor or actors in
character. This genre was widespread in eighteenth century London
and was practised by a large number of painters and engravers of all
levels of ability. The sources of the genre lay in a number of
diverse styles of art, including the court portraits of Lely and
Kneller and the fetes galantes of Watteau and Mercier.
Three types of media for theatrical portraits were particularly
prevalent in London, between c.1745 and 1800 : painting, print and
book illustration. All three offered some form of publicity to the
actor, and allowed patrons and buyers to recollect a memorable - performance of a play.
Several factors governed the artist's choice of actor, character
and play. Popular or unusual productions of plays were nearly always
accompanied by some form of actor portrait, although there are eighteenth century portraits which do not appear to reflect any particular
performance at all. Details of costume in these works usually reflected fashions of the contemporary stage, although some artists occasionally invented costumes to suit their own ends. Gesture and expression
of the actors in theatrical portraits also tended to follow stage convention, and some definite parallels between gestures of actors in
theatrical portraits and contemporary descriptions of those actors can
be made.
Theatrical portraiture on the eighteenth century model continued
into the nineteenth century, but its form changed with the changing
styles of acting. However the art continued to be largely commercial
and ephemeral, and in its very ephemerality lies its importance as
a part of the social history of the eighteenth century.
1986-01-01T00:00:00ZWest, ShearerA theatrical portrait is an image of an actor or actors in
character. This genre was widespread in eighteenth century London
and was practised by a large number of painters and engravers of all
levels of ability. The sources of the genre lay in a number of
diverse styles of art, including the court portraits of Lely and
Kneller and the fetes galantes of Watteau and Mercier.
Three types of media for theatrical portraits were particularly
prevalent in London, between c.1745 and 1800 : painting, print and
book illustration. All three offered some form of publicity to the
actor, and allowed patrons and buyers to recollect a memorable - performance of a play.
Several factors governed the artist's choice of actor, character
and play. Popular or unusual productions of plays were nearly always
accompanied by some form of actor portrait, although there are eighteenth century portraits which do not appear to reflect any particular
performance at all. Details of costume in these works usually reflected fashions of the contemporary stage, although some artists occasionally invented costumes to suit their own ends. Gesture and expression
of the actors in theatrical portraits also tended to follow stage convention, and some definite parallels between gestures of actors in
theatrical portraits and contemporary descriptions of those actors can
be made.
Theatrical portraiture on the eighteenth century model continued
into the nineteenth century, but its form changed with the changing
styles of acting. However the art continued to be largely commercial
and ephemeral, and in its very ephemerality lies its importance as
a part of the social history of the eighteenth century.An investigation of the effects of phonics teaching on children's progress in reading and spellinghttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2981
Progressive child-centred education has led to the ascendancy of look
and say methods for children learning to read, perpetuating the use of a guessing
strategy and promoting a dependency culture. Explicit synthetic phonics with
direct teaching of the alphabetic principle has been replaced by gradual analytic
phonics or no phonics, leaving children to discover spelling patterns for
themselves.
This investigation was directed towards identifying the relationship
between different teaching methods and children's progress in word reading,
spelling and reading comprehension. Initially, such progress was monitored from
1993-1995 in 12 Primary classes. Analyses of the data collected indicated that
(a) accelerated letter-sound knowledge and the ability to blend letter sounds had
a significant effect on children's progress in reading, spelling and comprehension
and (b) the degree to which blending had been explicitly taught had a significant
positive effect on the proportion of spelling errors produced which encode
orthographic information.
The effects of accelerating letter-sound knowledge and sounding and
blending were then examined experimentally in Primary 1 children using two
experimental groups and one control group. It was found that explicit synthetic
phonics, which demonstrates how letters blend together to form words, (a)
accelerated reading, spelling and phonemic awareness more rapidly than just
learning the letter sounds at an accelerated pace and (b) produced a higher
proportion of mature orthographic spelling errors than in the other conditions.
It was found that the strategies children use for decoding and encoding
mirror the teaching methods they have experienced. Gradual analytiC phonics
teaching encourages phonetic cue reading, children only processing some of the
letters and sounds in words. Explicit synthetic phonics teaching encourages early
cipher reading, children processing all of the letters and sounds in words. This
method teaches children how to use their knowledge of the alphabetic code to
decode unknown words, thus establishing an orthographic memory for such
words.
1998-01-01T00:00:00ZWatson, Joyce E.Progressive child-centred education has led to the ascendancy of look
and say methods for children learning to read, perpetuating the use of a guessing
strategy and promoting a dependency culture. Explicit synthetic phonics with
direct teaching of the alphabetic principle has been replaced by gradual analytic
phonics or no phonics, leaving children to discover spelling patterns for
themselves.
This investigation was directed towards identifying the relationship
between different teaching methods and children's progress in word reading,
spelling and reading comprehension. Initially, such progress was monitored from
1993-1995 in 12 Primary classes. Analyses of the data collected indicated that
(a) accelerated letter-sound knowledge and the ability to blend letter sounds had
a significant effect on children's progress in reading, spelling and comprehension
and (b) the degree to which blending had been explicitly taught had a significant
positive effect on the proportion of spelling errors produced which encode
orthographic information.
The effects of accelerating letter-sound knowledge and sounding and
blending were then examined experimentally in Primary 1 children using two
experimental groups and one control group. It was found that explicit synthetic
phonics, which demonstrates how letters blend together to form words, (a)
accelerated reading, spelling and phonemic awareness more rapidly than just
learning the letter sounds at an accelerated pace and (b) produced a higher
proportion of mature orthographic spelling errors than in the other conditions.
It was found that the strategies children use for decoding and encoding
mirror the teaching methods they have experienced. Gradual analytiC phonics
teaching encourages phonetic cue reading, children only processing some of the
letters and sounds in words. Explicit synthetic phonics teaching encourages early
cipher reading, children processing all of the letters and sounds in words. This
method teaches children how to use their knowledge of the alphabetic code to
decode unknown words, thus establishing an orthographic memory for such
words.Fantasising the self: a study of Alasdair Gray's 'Lanark', '1982 Janine', 'Something Leather' and 'Poor Things'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2931
This thesis explores the use of fantasy in Alasdair Gray's major fictions: Lanark
(1981), 1982 Janine (1984), Something Leather (1990) and Poor Things (1992).
The main purpose is to study the way Alasdair Gray borrows elements from
different forms of fantasy - magical realism, pornography, the Gothic and science
fiction - in order to explore and resolve the internal conflicts of his characters.
In the introduction current definitions of fantasy are surveyed. Also explored is
the concept of magical realism, as one of the objectives of the thesis is to
demonstrate that some of Gray's work, particularly Lanark, presents some of the
characteristics of this branch of Postmodernism.
The first chapter concerns Lanark. The juxtaposition of fantasy and
realism is explored in order to show the fragmentation of the self represented by
the figure of Thaw/Lanark. Also paradoxes and contradictions at the heart of this
work are investigated from the point of view of form and content. Of particular
importance is the conflict between the individual and society.
In the chapter dealing with 1982 Janine, the concept of deidealisation is
introduced to show how Jock deals with the figures in his past, Scotland and
himself Jock's personal conflicts and damaged psyche are explored through his
pornographic fantasies.
In chapter III Something Leather is compared to works by Sade,
particularly their use of sadomasochistic and homosexual fantasies as a form of
social subversion.
Chapter IV discusses Poor Things from the point of view of how characteristics
typical of the Gothic novel are parodied to explore gender issues such as the
construction of female identity by a male Other. Parallelisms between this novel
and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and John Fowles' A Maggot are also
explored.
In the conclusion the main concerns and obsessions of Gray's fiction are explored
through a discussion of his shorter fiction.
1999-01-01T00:00:00ZIbáñez, Eva MartínezThis thesis explores the use of fantasy in Alasdair Gray's major fictions: Lanark
(1981), 1982 Janine (1984), Something Leather (1990) and Poor Things (1992).
The main purpose is to study the way Alasdair Gray borrows elements from
different forms of fantasy - magical realism, pornography, the Gothic and science
fiction - in order to explore and resolve the internal conflicts of his characters.
In the introduction current definitions of fantasy are surveyed. Also explored is
the concept of magical realism, as one of the objectives of the thesis is to
demonstrate that some of Gray's work, particularly Lanark, presents some of the
characteristics of this branch of Postmodernism.
The first chapter concerns Lanark. The juxtaposition of fantasy and
realism is explored in order to show the fragmentation of the self represented by
the figure of Thaw/Lanark. Also paradoxes and contradictions at the heart of this
work are investigated from the point of view of form and content. Of particular
importance is the conflict between the individual and society.
In the chapter dealing with 1982 Janine, the concept of deidealisation is
introduced to show how Jock deals with the figures in his past, Scotland and
himself Jock's personal conflicts and damaged psyche are explored through his
pornographic fantasies.
In chapter III Something Leather is compared to works by Sade,
particularly their use of sadomasochistic and homosexual fantasies as a form of
social subversion.
Chapter IV discusses Poor Things from the point of view of how characteristics
typical of the Gothic novel are parodied to explore gender issues such as the
construction of female identity by a male Other. Parallelisms between this novel
and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and John Fowles' A Maggot are also
explored.
In the conclusion the main concerns and obsessions of Gray's fiction are explored
through a discussion of his shorter fiction.Sir Richard Burton: a study of his literary works relating to the Arab world and Islamhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2924
This thesis is concerned with a critical analysis from
a Moslem's point of view of Sir Richard Burton's works relating
to the Arab World and Islam. The research will attempt to
establish the merits and shortcomings of Burton's works in the
light of the proposed research. It will, however, at the same
time attempt to establish from internal evidence the extent and
nature of Burton's knowledge of both Arabic and Islam.
The thesis is divided into seven chapters, each of which deals
with one or more of Burton's works. Chapter one deals with
Burton's pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah. Chapter two deals
with the collection of proverbs "Proverbia Communia Syriaca."
Chapter three covers Burton's Kasidah and discusses his interest
in Sufism and spiritualism. Chapter four concentrates on his
translation of The Arabian Nights paying particular attention to
the annotations and "Terminal Essay." Chapter five deals with
The Perfumed Garden and tries to make a comparison between
Burton's translation and its Arabic original in order to estimate
to what extent could Burton's Garden be taken as a representative
of the original. Chapter six deals with Burton's three essays
The Jew, The Gypsy and El-Islam. This chapter concentrates on Burton's religious loyalty and also points out the true reasons
behind writing these essays. Chapter seven touches upon almost
all his other works and translations. It attempts to establish
and prove the fact that the study of the grabs and Islam and the
interest in them was a life-long obsession with Burton rather
than a temporary occupation. The conclusion attempts to put
together the findings of all the other chapters. However, it
will concentrate on pointing out where did really Burton's
religious and racial loyalties lie as well as give a brief
and concluding comment of the nature and extent of his knowledge
of both the Arabic language and Islam. The eight appendixes
that follow the research include technical data ranging from
Burton's background reading to the listing of topics he
studied or referred to in the Moslem religion.
1978-01-01T00:00:00ZMaʾat, Yassin SalhaniThis thesis is concerned with a critical analysis from
a Moslem's point of view of Sir Richard Burton's works relating
to the Arab World and Islam. The research will attempt to
establish the merits and shortcomings of Burton's works in the
light of the proposed research. It will, however, at the same
time attempt to establish from internal evidence the extent and
nature of Burton's knowledge of both Arabic and Islam.
The thesis is divided into seven chapters, each of which deals
with one or more of Burton's works. Chapter one deals with
Burton's pilgrimage to Mecca and El-Medinah. Chapter two deals
with the collection of proverbs "Proverbia Communia Syriaca."
Chapter three covers Burton's Kasidah and discusses his interest
in Sufism and spiritualism. Chapter four concentrates on his
translation of The Arabian Nights paying particular attention to
the annotations and "Terminal Essay." Chapter five deals with
The Perfumed Garden and tries to make a comparison between
Burton's translation and its Arabic original in order to estimate
to what extent could Burton's Garden be taken as a representative
of the original. Chapter six deals with Burton's three essays
The Jew, The Gypsy and El-Islam. This chapter concentrates on Burton's religious loyalty and also points out the true reasons
behind writing these essays. Chapter seven touches upon almost
all his other works and translations. It attempts to establish
and prove the fact that the study of the grabs and Islam and the
interest in them was a life-long obsession with Burton rather
than a temporary occupation. The conclusion attempts to put
together the findings of all the other chapters. However, it
will concentrate on pointing out where did really Burton's
religious and racial loyalties lie as well as give a brief
and concluding comment of the nature and extent of his knowledge
of both the Arabic language and Islam. The eight appendixes
that follow the research include technical data ranging from
Burton's background reading to the listing of topics he
studied or referred to in the Moslem religion.The Whalley Coucher Book and the dialectal phonology of Lancashire and Cheshire 1175-1350http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2911
An investigation by G. P. Cubbin into the local placename
sources of Lancashire of a time when the vernacular had
a low status isolated the Whalley Coucher Book as the one that
most seemed to deserve further scrutiny. That book therefore
forms the basis of the present study.
The Coucher Boook is a mediaeval work of monastic
provenance and is a compilation of deeds received by Whalley
Abbey over the period. The interest of the source lies in its
representation of many place-names by writers who may be
supposed to have been familiar with them. Whalley's placename
corpus affords scope for examination of variation that is
of dialectal significance.
A searching analysis is undertaken of the evidence
that the Whalley Coucher Book offers. Questions of dating, of
location of place-names, of the elements that compose them,
and of the status of the text have to be examined with a view
to elucidating the significance for phonology of this evidence.
Such examination is carried out at length, and it is hoped that
these aspects of the present work may be found to have
application in linguistic and historical inquiry both for the
actual results relative to the Whalley Coucher Book and for the
methodological demonstration.
A considerable amount of dialectal phonological
information from the source is presented in this thesis. It is
critically examined and collated and the attempt is made to
derive actual usage in the territory and period concerned. On
the whole the conclusion is that most of the evidence does
reflect the dialect and that it produces a believable distribution
of forms.
Some of the dialectal information thus acquired
appears as new. More commonly, however, this study confirms
the existing picture or makes it somewhat more precise. The
evidence does not escape the uneven coverage that is to be
expected in place-name evidence for dialect.
Although the amount of the evidence of the Whalley
Coucher Book and its general consistency are comparatively
good, the finding of this work is that they are not enough to
establish the original suggestion that the Coucher Book might
deserve reliance without reference to, and even in total
defiance of, other local sources. The present study concludes
that the best evidence consists of a select group of sources amongst which Whalley may be taken as pre-eminent.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZKing, Christopher D.An investigation by G. P. Cubbin into the local placename
sources of Lancashire of a time when the vernacular had
a low status isolated the Whalley Coucher Book as the one that
most seemed to deserve further scrutiny. That book therefore
forms the basis of the present study.
The Coucher Boook is a mediaeval work of monastic
provenance and is a compilation of deeds received by Whalley
Abbey over the period. The interest of the source lies in its
representation of many place-names by writers who may be
supposed to have been familiar with them. Whalley's placename
corpus affords scope for examination of variation that is
of dialectal significance.
A searching analysis is undertaken of the evidence
that the Whalley Coucher Book offers. Questions of dating, of
location of place-names, of the elements that compose them,
and of the status of the text have to be examined with a view
to elucidating the significance for phonology of this evidence.
Such examination is carried out at length, and it is hoped that
these aspects of the present work may be found to have
application in linguistic and historical inquiry both for the
actual results relative to the Whalley Coucher Book and for the
methodological demonstration.
A considerable amount of dialectal phonological
information from the source is presented in this thesis. It is
critically examined and collated and the attempt is made to
derive actual usage in the territory and period concerned. On
the whole the conclusion is that most of the evidence does
reflect the dialect and that it produces a believable distribution
of forms.
Some of the dialectal information thus acquired
appears as new. More commonly, however, this study confirms
the existing picture or makes it somewhat more precise. The
evidence does not escape the uneven coverage that is to be
expected in place-name evidence for dialect.
Although the amount of the evidence of the Whalley
Coucher Book and its general consistency are comparatively
good, the finding of this work is that they are not enough to
establish the original suggestion that the Coucher Book might
deserve reliance without reference to, and even in total
defiance of, other local sources. The present study concludes
that the best evidence consists of a select group of sources amongst which Whalley may be taken as pre-eminent.Shadows and chivalry: pain, suffering, evil and goodness in the works of George MacDonald and C.S. Lewishttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2881
This thesis argues that George MacDonald's literary influence upon C. S.
Lewis-concerning the themes of pain, suffering, evil and goodness-was
transforming and long-lasting. It is argued in the opening chapter that MacDonald's
work had a great deal to do with the change in young Lewis's imagination, helping to
convert him from a romantic doubter to a romantic believer in God and his goodness.
A review of both writers' first works suggests that such influence may have begun
earlier in Lewis's career than has been noticed. The second chapter examines how
both authors contended with the problems that pain and suffering present, and how
both understood and presented the nature of faith. Differences in their treatment of
these subjects are noted, but it is argued that these views and depictions share
fundamental elements, and that MacDonald's direct influence can be demonstrated in
particular cases. The view that MacDonald was primarily a champion of feelings is
challenged, as is the idea that either man's later writing displays a loss of faith in God
and his goodness. The third chapter, in specifically refuting the assertion that
MacDonald's view of evil was inclusive in the Jungian or dualistic sense, shows how
both authors' work maintains an unmistakable distinction between evil fortune and
moral evil. The next two chapters examine fundamental similarities in their treatment
of evil and goodness. Special care is taken in these two chapters to trace MacDonald's
direct influence, especially regarding the differences they believed existed between
hell's Pride and what they believed God to be. The fifth chapter reviews their ideas
and depictions of heaven in summing up the study's argument concerning the overall
influence of MacDonald's writing upon Lewis's imagination-in particular the change
in Lewis's understanding of the relations between Spirits, Nature, and God.
2004-01-01T00:00:00ZMcInnis, JeffThis thesis argues that George MacDonald's literary influence upon C. S.
Lewis-concerning the themes of pain, suffering, evil and goodness-was
transforming and long-lasting. It is argued in the opening chapter that MacDonald's
work had a great deal to do with the change in young Lewis's imagination, helping to
convert him from a romantic doubter to a romantic believer in God and his goodness.
A review of both writers' first works suggests that such influence may have begun
earlier in Lewis's career than has been noticed. The second chapter examines how
both authors contended with the problems that pain and suffering present, and how
both understood and presented the nature of faith. Differences in their treatment of
these subjects are noted, but it is argued that these views and depictions share
fundamental elements, and that MacDonald's direct influence can be demonstrated in
particular cases. The view that MacDonald was primarily a champion of feelings is
challenged, as is the idea that either man's later writing displays a loss of faith in God
and his goodness. The third chapter, in specifically refuting the assertion that
MacDonald's view of evil was inclusive in the Jungian or dualistic sense, shows how
both authors' work maintains an unmistakable distinction between evil fortune and
moral evil. The next two chapters examine fundamental similarities in their treatment
of evil and goodness. Special care is taken in these two chapters to trace MacDonald's
direct influence, especially regarding the differences they believed existed between
hell's Pride and what they believed God to be. The fifth chapter reviews their ideas
and depictions of heaven in summing up the study's argument concerning the overall
influence of MacDonald's writing upon Lewis's imagination-in particular the change
in Lewis's understanding of the relations between Spirits, Nature, and God.Introversion and extroversion in certain late Victorian writershttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2824
This thesis deals with three writers, George Gissing, Edmund
Gosse and Robert Louis Stevenson. I use the words "introversion"
and "extroversion" partly in a geographical sense.
George Gissing, for example, in spite of Continental influences
remained a very English (in some ways almost insular)
novelist, and in that sense an introvert. Edmund Gosse, on the
other hand, was a very cosmopolitan critic although his style
was typically English. Robert Louis Stevenson provides a third
angle. Having been born in Edinburgh he was forced into exile
for most of his life, and obviously this had a great effect on
his writings. Of the three writers most weight is given to
Edmund Gosse.
In my analysis of George Gissing I concentrate on some of
his best known novels, The Unclassed, The Nether World, New
Grub Street and Born in Exile. The Emancipated and By the
Ionian Sea deal specifically with Italy. There are four
chapters on Edmund Gosse. The first concentrates on the early
part of his long career when his main interest was Scandinavian
literature. The next two chapters give an account of his impressions
of and writings on America and France. In the fourth
chapter on Edmund Gosse I concentrate on the part of his career
when he had become an established authority on his own country's
literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, too, is dealt with in
four chapters. First I write briefly about his Scottish works,
all inspired by his childhood and youth. Next I deal with his
two favourite countries, France and the United States, both
associated with his Wife, Fanny. The last chapter follows
Stevenson to the South Seas where he spent the last few years
of his life and wrote some of his best books.
The three writers are compared from time to time. Robert
Louis Stevenson and Edmund Gosse knew each other well;
George Gissing is the odd man out. But his reaction to foreign
influences differs from that of the other two and this makes a
comparison very interesting.
1985-01-01T00:00:00ZStepputat, JorgenThis thesis deals with three writers, George Gissing, Edmund
Gosse and Robert Louis Stevenson. I use the words "introversion"
and "extroversion" partly in a geographical sense.
George Gissing, for example, in spite of Continental influences
remained a very English (in some ways almost insular)
novelist, and in that sense an introvert. Edmund Gosse, on the
other hand, was a very cosmopolitan critic although his style
was typically English. Robert Louis Stevenson provides a third
angle. Having been born in Edinburgh he was forced into exile
for most of his life, and obviously this had a great effect on
his writings. Of the three writers most weight is given to
Edmund Gosse.
In my analysis of George Gissing I concentrate on some of
his best known novels, The Unclassed, The Nether World, New
Grub Street and Born in Exile. The Emancipated and By the
Ionian Sea deal specifically with Italy. There are four
chapters on Edmund Gosse. The first concentrates on the early
part of his long career when his main interest was Scandinavian
literature. The next two chapters give an account of his impressions
of and writings on America and France. In the fourth
chapter on Edmund Gosse I concentrate on the part of his career
when he had become an established authority on his own country's
literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, too, is dealt with in
four chapters. First I write briefly about his Scottish works,
all inspired by his childhood and youth. Next I deal with his
two favourite countries, France and the United States, both
associated with his Wife, Fanny. The last chapter follows
Stevenson to the South Seas where he spent the last few years
of his life and wrote some of his best books.
The three writers are compared from time to time. Robert
Louis Stevenson and Edmund Gosse knew each other well;
George Gissing is the odd man out. But his reaction to foreign
influences differs from that of the other two and this makes a
comparison very interesting.Negative constructions in selected Middle English verse textshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2795
The objective of the present study is to investigate the historical
development of negative constructions in ME verse and to provide a
descriptive account of it. The central issues analyzed in this thesis
are: (1) the usage of the negative adverbs 'ne', 'not' and some other
negative elements such as 'never', 'no', etc.; (2) the occurrence of
negative contraction as illustrated by 'nam' (< ne am) and 'nolde' (< ne
wolde); and (3) the development and the decline of multiple negation.
The thesis has both a chronological and a geographical perspective,
since it examines changes in usage which took place during the ME
period and various dialectal types. The thesis also includes a
discussion of pleonastic negation and the omission of negative
elements (termed 'unexpressed negation').
For the purpose of these analyses, twenty manuscripts of
eighteen verse texts ranging chronologically from early ME to later
ME are selected from various geographical areas of England. The
texts investigated are: (1) Poema Morale, (2) The Owl and the
Nightingale, (3) King Horn, (4) Havelok, (5) The South English
Legendary, (6) English Metrical Homilies, (7) The Middle English
Genesis and Exodus, (8) The Poems of William of Shoreham, (8) Cursor
Mundi, (10) Sir Ferumbras, (11) Confessio Amantis, (12) Handlyng
Synne, (13) Kyng Alisaunder, (14) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
(15) The Affiterative Morte Arthure, (16) Alexander and Dindimus, (17)
The Destruction of Troy, and (18) The Stanzaic Morte Arthur. Due to
the paucity of suitable material for linguistic analysis at the
beginning of the ME period, Poema Morale is investigated in three
selected manuscripts (MS Lambeth, MS Trinity, and MS Digby), all of
which are localized in different areas of England.
1993-01-01T00:00:00ZIyeiri, YokoThe objective of the present study is to investigate the historical
development of negative constructions in ME verse and to provide a
descriptive account of it. The central issues analyzed in this thesis
are: (1) the usage of the negative adverbs 'ne', 'not' and some other
negative elements such as 'never', 'no', etc.; (2) the occurrence of
negative contraction as illustrated by 'nam' (< ne am) and 'nolde' (< ne
wolde); and (3) the development and the decline of multiple negation.
The thesis has both a chronological and a geographical perspective,
since it examines changes in usage which took place during the ME
period and various dialectal types. The thesis also includes a
discussion of pleonastic negation and the omission of negative
elements (termed 'unexpressed negation').
For the purpose of these analyses, twenty manuscripts of
eighteen verse texts ranging chronologically from early ME to later
ME are selected from various geographical areas of England. The
texts investigated are: (1) Poema Morale, (2) The Owl and the
Nightingale, (3) King Horn, (4) Havelok, (5) The South English
Legendary, (6) English Metrical Homilies, (7) The Middle English
Genesis and Exodus, (8) The Poems of William of Shoreham, (8) Cursor
Mundi, (10) Sir Ferumbras, (11) Confessio Amantis, (12) Handlyng
Synne, (13) Kyng Alisaunder, (14) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
(15) The Affiterative Morte Arthure, (16) Alexander and Dindimus, (17)
The Destruction of Troy, and (18) The Stanzaic Morte Arthur. Due to
the paucity of suitable material for linguistic analysis at the
beginning of the ME period, Poema Morale is investigated in three
selected manuscripts (MS Lambeth, MS Trinity, and MS Digby), all of
which are localized in different areas of England.English impressions of Venice up to the early seventeenth century: a documentary studyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2792
The first Englishmen to write about the city-state
of Venice were the pilgrims passing through on their way to
the Holy Land. Their impressions are recorded in the travel diaries
and collections of advice for prospective fellow pilgrims
between the early fourteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, the most substantial being those of William Wey,
Sir Richard Guylforde and Sir Richard Torkington, who visited
Venice in 1458 and '62, 1506, and 1517 respectively. In the
1540s arrived the men who saw Venice as part of the new Europe--Andrew Borde and William Thomas. Thomas's study of the
Venetian state emphasized the efficiency of its
administration, seeing it as an example of constructive
government, where effective organisation for the common good
led directly to national stability and prosperity. The mid-sixteenth
century saw the beginnings of Venice as a tourist
centre; the visitors who came between 1550 and the end of the
century described the sights and the people, the traditions
and way of life. Fynes Moryson's extensive account details
what could be seen and learned in the city by an observant and
enquiring visitor.
In addition to information available in first-hand
accounts of Venice, much could be learned from the work of the
late sixteenth-century English translators. Linguistic,
cultural, geographical, historical and literary translations
yielded further knowledge and, more importantly, new
perspectives, Venice being seen through the eyes of Italians
and, through Lewkenor's comprehensive work, The Commonwealth
and Government of Venice, of Venetians themselves.
Finally, to assess the general impressions of
Venice and the Venetians, we consider the literature of the
turn of the sixteenth-seventeenth century; what, and how
much, of the three-hundred year accumulation of knowledge of
the city and people of Venice had most caught the attention
and imagination of the English mind, and how close was the
relationship between the popular impression and the
documentary information from which it had largely developed.
1987-01-01T00:00:00ZHammerton, Rachel JoanThe first Englishmen to write about the city-state
of Venice were the pilgrims passing through on their way to
the Holy Land. Their impressions are recorded in the travel diaries
and collections of advice for prospective fellow pilgrims
between the early fourteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, the most substantial being those of William Wey,
Sir Richard Guylforde and Sir Richard Torkington, who visited
Venice in 1458 and '62, 1506, and 1517 respectively. In the
1540s arrived the men who saw Venice as part of the new Europe--Andrew Borde and William Thomas. Thomas's study of the
Venetian state emphasized the efficiency of its
administration, seeing it as an example of constructive
government, where effective organisation for the common good
led directly to national stability and prosperity. The mid-sixteenth
century saw the beginnings of Venice as a tourist
centre; the visitors who came between 1550 and the end of the
century described the sights and the people, the traditions
and way of life. Fynes Moryson's extensive account details
what could be seen and learned in the city by an observant and
enquiring visitor.
In addition to information available in first-hand
accounts of Venice, much could be learned from the work of the
late sixteenth-century English translators. Linguistic,
cultural, geographical, historical and literary translations
yielded further knowledge and, more importantly, new
perspectives, Venice being seen through the eyes of Italians
and, through Lewkenor's comprehensive work, The Commonwealth
and Government of Venice, of Venetians themselves.
Finally, to assess the general impressions of
Venice and the Venetians, we consider the literature of the
turn of the sixteenth-seventeenth century; what, and how
much, of the three-hundred year accumulation of knowledge of
the city and people of Venice had most caught the attention
and imagination of the English mind, and how close was the
relationship between the popular impression and the
documentary information from which it had largely developed.An edition of 'Contemplations of the dread and love of God'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2786
This thesis presents an edition of Contemplations of the Dread and
Love of God, a late Middle English devotional prose text for which
no critical edition is currently available. I have transcribed
and collated the text from all sixteen extant manuscripts and the
1506 printed edition. An investigation of the errors and variants
according to the classical method of textual criticism has yielded
little in the way of conclusive results, and it has therefore not
proved possible to construct a stemma of manuscripts from the
corpus of evidence as it now exists. My edition therefore uses
one manuscript (Maidstone MS Museum 6) as a base; I emend the text
of Maidstone where necessary, and cite variants from all the other
witnesses to show all differences of substance. A full critical
apparatus is provided, comprising: the text with variants, textual
notes and glossary. The introduction includes a full description
of all the manuscripts and the two early printed editions, an
outline of the methods of textual criticism applied and their
results, and an explanation of the choice of base manuscript;
information about the language of the Maidstone manuscript and the
date of the text are also provided, as is an outline of my
editorial principles. The thesis also contains two appendices.
The first of these deals briefly with the twenty-two instances
where individual chapters of Contemplations appear in other
manuscript compilations; the second discusses the English and
Latin prayers which follow the full text in some manuscripts.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZConnolly, MargaretThis thesis presents an edition of Contemplations of the Dread and
Love of God, a late Middle English devotional prose text for which
no critical edition is currently available. I have transcribed
and collated the text from all sixteen extant manuscripts and the
1506 printed edition. An investigation of the errors and variants
according to the classical method of textual criticism has yielded
little in the way of conclusive results, and it has therefore not
proved possible to construct a stemma of manuscripts from the
corpus of evidence as it now exists. My edition therefore uses
one manuscript (Maidstone MS Museum 6) as a base; I emend the text
of Maidstone where necessary, and cite variants from all the other
witnesses to show all differences of substance. A full critical
apparatus is provided, comprising: the text with variants, textual
notes and glossary. The introduction includes a full description
of all the manuscripts and the two early printed editions, an
outline of the methods of textual criticism applied and their
results, and an explanation of the choice of base manuscript;
information about the language of the Maidstone manuscript and the
date of the text are also provided, as is an outline of my
editorial principles. The thesis also contains two appendices.
The first of these deals briefly with the twenty-two instances
where individual chapters of Contemplations appear in other
manuscript compilations; the second discusses the English and
Latin prayers which follow the full text in some manuscripts.Thomas Hardy and the meaning of freedomhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2691
This is a study of the
meaning of
freedom in Thomas Hardy's
fiction. The first section of the thesis is concerned with
the influences in Hardy's thought
and view of man and man's
position
in the universe. Attention
will
be
given mainly
to
three sources of influence on
Hardy's thought.
Darwinian theories of evolution and the secular
movement of
the nineteenth century and the
change they
brought
about
in
man's view of himself and his state in the
world can be seen clearly
in Hardy's personal writings as
well as his fiction. His childhood contact with
Dorset folk
beliefs
and superstitions can also
be
perceived
to have a
great influence not only on
his art but on his thought and
outlook as well.
In the second section an investigation in detail of the
meaning of
freedom in four
of
Hardy's
novels will
be carried
out. In the novels, man will
be seen as essentially
free
and not an automaton or a plaything of necessity or nature
or fate, for
example.
However, we shall see
that man's
freedom
of action as well as of choice
is severely
limited
but not annihilated by a number of
factors working
from
within and from
without man's character.
In this, nature
both as phenomena and as system plays a great part. Society
with its standards, norms,
laws and implied understandings
is another contributing
factor in
constraining man's
freedom. Man
also has his freedom limited by chance
happenings and coincidences that he cannot control.
"Character is fate", quotes Hardy from Novalis, and
everywhere
in the novels we see characters'
destinies linked
tightly with
their personal traits, unconscious urges and
peculiarities of character either passed to them by heredity
or formed by early
life conditioning or both.
Nevertheless, man
is responsible in Hardy's
view
because he has that essential sense of freedom;
and hence
that tragic flavour that tinges Hardy's fiction
which would
have been impossible
with machine-like people as characters.
1985-01-01T00:00:00ZBadawi, MuhamadThis is a study of the
meaning of
freedom in Thomas Hardy's
fiction. The first section of the thesis is concerned with
the influences in Hardy's thought
and view of man and man's
position
in the universe. Attention
will
be
given mainly
to
three sources of influence on
Hardy's thought.
Darwinian theories of evolution and the secular
movement of
the nineteenth century and the
change they
brought
about
in
man's view of himself and his state in the
world can be seen clearly
in Hardy's personal writings as
well as his fiction. His childhood contact with
Dorset folk
beliefs
and superstitions can also
be
perceived
to have a
great influence not only on
his art but on his thought and
outlook as well.
In the second section an investigation in detail of the
meaning of
freedom in four
of
Hardy's
novels will
be carried
out. In the novels, man will
be seen as essentially
free
and not an automaton or a plaything of necessity or nature
or fate, for
example.
However, we shall see
that man's
freedom
of action as well as of choice
is severely
limited
but not annihilated by a number of
factors working
from
within and from
without man's character.
In this, nature
both as phenomena and as system plays a great part. Society
with its standards, norms,
laws and implied understandings
is another contributing
factor in
constraining man's
freedom. Man
also has his freedom limited by chance
happenings and coincidences that he cannot control.
"Character is fate", quotes Hardy from Novalis, and
everywhere
in the novels we see characters'
destinies linked
tightly with
their personal traits, unconscious urges and
peculiarities of character either passed to them by heredity
or formed by early
life conditioning or both.
Nevertheless, man
is responsible in Hardy's
view
because he has that essential sense of freedom;
and hence
that tragic flavour that tinges Hardy's fiction
which would
have been impossible
with machine-like people as characters.Gerald Manley Hopkins and the music of poetryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2625
This study attempts to
correlate
two facts
about
Gerard Manley Hopkins: that he
was
an avid musician, who
theorised
about and composed music; and that his
poetry
is
characterised by its highly
complex, evocative sounds and
by its
relation of
form to
meaning, sound
to
sense.
This
study
is
an attempt
to
prove
that Hopkins is a
"musical"
poet
in
a
specific and
literal
sense--that his
musical
knowledge
and
interests influenced his
poetry
in
specific and discernible
ways, making
his
work
"musical" in
a sense that other poetry
of
his
age
is
not
(or to
an extent
that
other poetry
is
not), and resulting
in
much of
what we consider
to be
characteristic
in his
verse.
The
study
is divided into two
parts,
the first (I-III)
analysing
the role music plays
in his theoretical
writings,
the
second
(IV-VI) tracing these
musical
influences through
to the
musical and poetic art
itself. In Part One, Chapter I
presents
Hopkins the
musician,
the
biographical details
and philosophical
background behind his
musical
interest; Chapter II
relates
this to Hopkins
as priest and
theologian, demonstrating
music's role as central
to
his Scotus-based
position;
Chapter III then
shows
this
musical philosophy
in
more
detail
in his theories of
language
and art, resulting
in
an
ideal
art of song epitomised
by the
art of
Hopkins' favourite
composer,
Henry Purcell. Part Two then looks
at
Hopkins' art
itself,
shown as
following this Purcellian
musical
ideal: Chapter IV differentiates the
requirements of songs
from those
of poetry, and
demonstrates the
particular aims and
techniques of
Hopkins'
own songs;
Chapter V
reveals principles of musical or song-structure
behind Hopkins' concepts of sprung rhythm and other characteristic poetic
devices; finally,
Chapter VI
analyses
the
poems to discover their
radically musical nature.
The
study concludes with a
brief
question on
the
nature of
"the
music of poetry" generally.
1988-01-01T00:00:00ZGutman, Laura A.This study attempts to
correlate
two facts
about
Gerard Manley Hopkins: that he
was
an avid musician, who
theorised
about and composed music; and that his
poetry
is
characterised by its highly
complex, evocative sounds and
by its
relation of
form to
meaning, sound
to
sense.
This
study
is
an attempt
to
prove
that Hopkins is a
"musical"
poet
in
a
specific and
literal
sense--that his
musical
knowledge
and
interests influenced his
poetry
in
specific and discernible
ways, making
his
work
"musical" in
a sense that other poetry
of
his
age
is
not
(or to
an extent
that
other poetry
is
not), and resulting
in
much of
what we consider
to be
characteristic
in his
verse.
The
study
is divided into two
parts,
the first (I-III)
analysing
the role music plays
in his theoretical
writings,
the
second
(IV-VI) tracing these
musical
influences through
to the
musical and poetic art
itself. In Part One, Chapter I
presents
Hopkins the
musician,
the
biographical details
and philosophical
background behind his
musical
interest; Chapter II
relates
this to Hopkins
as priest and
theologian, demonstrating
music's role as central
to
his Scotus-based
position;
Chapter III then
shows
this
musical philosophy
in
more
detail
in his theories of
language
and art, resulting
in
an
ideal
art of song epitomised
by the
art of
Hopkins' favourite
composer,
Henry Purcell. Part Two then looks
at
Hopkins' art
itself,
shown as
following this Purcellian
musical
ideal: Chapter IV differentiates the
requirements of songs
from those
of poetry, and
demonstrates the
particular aims and
techniques of
Hopkins'
own songs;
Chapter V
reveals principles of musical or song-structure
behind Hopkins' concepts of sprung rhythm and other characteristic poetic
devices; finally,
Chapter VI
analyses
the
poems to discover their
radically musical nature.
The
study concludes with a
brief
question on
the
nature of
"the
music of poetry" generally.Marlowe and the Greekshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2590
Marlowe's combination of lyric violence with a spirit of irony and scepticism has always seemed somewhat paradoxical, but we may find an explanation for it in his debt to Greek. Greek language learning developed in England from the early 1500s onwards and was particularly strong at Cambridge under Sir John Cheke in the 1540s, when many of the teachers of the future generation of Elizabethan writers were trained. In the case of Marlowe, what Joseph Hall was to label ‘pure iambics’ can be seen to have Greek origins, and the plays in which these are first deployed (the two parts of Tamburlaine) almost certainly take Xenophon's Cyrpopaiedia as one of their models. But the ironic Marlowe is also evident in Tamburlaine, and the model here is not Xenophon but Lucian, whom Gabriel Harvey records as being a vogue author with Cambridge students in 1580, the year that Marlowe matriculated. Lucian also impacts on Doctor Faustus, and this becomes more evident if we read the famous line on Helen of Troy from the Dialogues of the Dead in the context of another passage from ‘The Judgement of the Goddesses’ from Dialogues of the Gods.
2013-01-01T00:00:00ZRhodes, NeilMarlowe's combination of lyric violence with a spirit of irony and scepticism has always seemed somewhat paradoxical, but we may find an explanation for it in his debt to Greek. Greek language learning developed in England from the early 1500s onwards and was particularly strong at Cambridge under Sir John Cheke in the 1540s, when many of the teachers of the future generation of Elizabethan writers were trained. In the case of Marlowe, what Joseph Hall was to label ‘pure iambics’ can be seen to have Greek origins, and the plays in which these are first deployed (the two parts of Tamburlaine) almost certainly take Xenophon's Cyrpopaiedia as one of their models. But the ironic Marlowe is also evident in Tamburlaine, and the model here is not Xenophon but Lucian, whom Gabriel Harvey records as being a vogue author with Cambridge students in 1580, the year that Marlowe matriculated. Lucian also impacts on Doctor Faustus, and this becomes more evident if we read the famous line on Helen of Troy from the Dialogues of the Dead in the context of another passage from ‘The Judgement of the Goddesses’ from Dialogues of the Gods.'The divine voice within us' : the reflective tradition in the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliothttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2583
This thesis argues that a ‘tradition of moral analysis’ between Jane Austen and George Eliot — a common ground which has been identified by critics from F.R. Leavis to Gillian Beer, but never fully explored — can be illuminated by turning to what this thesis calls ‘the reflective tradition’. In the eighteenth century, ideas about reflection provided a new and influential way of thinking about the human mind; about how we come to know ourselves and the world around us through the mind. The belief in the individual to act as his/her own guide through the cultivation of a reflective mind and attentiveness to a reflective voice emerges across a wide range of discourses. This thesis begins with an examination of reflection in the philosophy, children’s literature, novels, poetry, educational tracts and sermons that would have been known to Austen. It then defines Austen’s development of reflective dynamics by looking at her six major novels; finally, it analyzes Middlemarch to define Eliot’s proximity to this aspect of Austen’s art. The thesis documents Eliot’s reading of Austen through the criticism of G. H. Lewes to support a reading of Eliot’s assimilation of an Austenian attention to mental processes in her novels. Reflection is at the heart of moral life and growth for both novelists. This thesis corrects a tendency in Austen’s reception to focus on the mimetic aspect of her art, thereby overlooking the introspective sense of reflection. It offers new insights into Austen’s and Eliot’s work, and it contributes to an understanding of the development of the realist novel and the ethical dimension in the role of the novel reader.
2011-09-14T00:00:00ZPimentel, A. RoseThis thesis argues that a ‘tradition of moral analysis’ between Jane Austen and George Eliot — a common ground which has been identified by critics from F.R. Leavis to Gillian Beer, but never fully explored — can be illuminated by turning to what this thesis calls ‘the reflective tradition’. In the eighteenth century, ideas about reflection provided a new and influential way of thinking about the human mind; about how we come to know ourselves and the world around us through the mind. The belief in the individual to act as his/her own guide through the cultivation of a reflective mind and attentiveness to a reflective voice emerges across a wide range of discourses. This thesis begins with an examination of reflection in the philosophy, children’s literature, novels, poetry, educational tracts and sermons that would have been known to Austen. It then defines Austen’s development of reflective dynamics by looking at her six major novels; finally, it analyzes Middlemarch to define Eliot’s proximity to this aspect of Austen’s art. The thesis documents Eliot’s reading of Austen through the criticism of G. H. Lewes to support a reading of Eliot’s assimilation of an Austenian attention to mental processes in her novels. Reflection is at the heart of moral life and growth for both novelists. This thesis corrects a tendency in Austen’s reception to focus on the mimetic aspect of her art, thereby overlooking the introspective sense of reflection. It offers new insights into Austen’s and Eliot’s work, and it contributes to an understanding of the development of the realist novel and the ethical dimension in the role of the novel reader.Exceptional intercourse : sex, time and space in contemporary novels by male British and American writershttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2582
This thesis provides a theory of exceptional sex through close readings of contemporary novels by male British and American writers. I take as my overriding methodological approach Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception, which is a juridico-political state in which the law has been suspended and the difference between rule and transgression is indistinguishable. Within this state, the spatiotemporal markers inside and outside also become indeterminable, making it impossible to tell whether one is inside or outside time and space. Using this framework, I work through narratives of sexual interaction – On Chesil Beach, Gertrude and Claudius, Sabbath’s Theater, and The Act of Love – to conceptualise categories of sexual exceptionality. My study is not a survey, and the texts have been chosen as they focus on different sexual behaviours, thereby opening up a variety of sexual exceptionalities. I concentrate on male writers and narratives of heterosexual sex as most work on sex, time and space is comprised of feminist readings of literature by women and queer work on gay, lesbian or trans writers and narratives. However, in the Coda I expand my argument by turning to Emma Donoghue’s Room, which, as the protagonist has been trapped for the first five years of his life, provides a tabula rasa’s perspective of exceptionality. Through my analysis of exceptionality, I provide spatiotemporal readings of the hymen, incest, adultery, sexual listening and the arranged affair. I also conceptualise textual exceptionalities – the incestuous prequel, auricular reading and the positionality of the narrator, the reader and literary characters. Exceptional sex challenges the assumption in recent queer theory that to be out of time is ‘queer’ and to be in time is ‘straight’. Furthermore, exceptionality complicates the concepts of perversion and transgression as the norm and its transgression become indistinct in the state of exception. In contrast, exceptionality offers a new, more determinate way to analyse narratives of sex.
2011-08-23T00:00:00ZDavies, BenThis thesis provides a theory of exceptional sex through close readings of contemporary novels by male British and American writers. I take as my overriding methodological approach Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception, which is a juridico-political state in which the law has been suspended and the difference between rule and transgression is indistinguishable. Within this state, the spatiotemporal markers inside and outside also become indeterminable, making it impossible to tell whether one is inside or outside time and space. Using this framework, I work through narratives of sexual interaction – On Chesil Beach, Gertrude and Claudius, Sabbath’s Theater, and The Act of Love – to conceptualise categories of sexual exceptionality. My study is not a survey, and the texts have been chosen as they focus on different sexual behaviours, thereby opening up a variety of sexual exceptionalities. I concentrate on male writers and narratives of heterosexual sex as most work on sex, time and space is comprised of feminist readings of literature by women and queer work on gay, lesbian or trans writers and narratives. However, in the Coda I expand my argument by turning to Emma Donoghue’s Room, which, as the protagonist has been trapped for the first five years of his life, provides a tabula rasa’s perspective of exceptionality. Through my analysis of exceptionality, I provide spatiotemporal readings of the hymen, incest, adultery, sexual listening and the arranged affair. I also conceptualise textual exceptionalities – the incestuous prequel, auricular reading and the positionality of the narrator, the reader and literary characters. Exceptional sex challenges the assumption in recent queer theory that to be out of time is ‘queer’ and to be in time is ‘straight’. Furthermore, exceptionality complicates the concepts of perversion and transgression as the norm and its transgression become indistinct in the state of exception. In contrast, exceptionality offers a new, more determinate way to analyse narratives of sex.Revolution by degrees : Philip Sidney and Gradatiohttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2574
2011-05-01T00:00:00ZDavis, Alexander LeeWomen and independence in the nineteenth century novel : a study of Austen, Trollope and Jameshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2319
'Women
and
independence in the nineteenth century novel : a
study
of
Austen, Trollope
and
James', begins
with the
concept of
independence
and works through the three
most common usages of
the
word.
The first, financial independence (not
needing to
earn one's
livelihood)
appears to be
a necessary prerequisite
for the
second
and third forms
of
independence,
although it is by
no means an
unequivocal good
in
any of
the
novels.
The
second,
intellectual
independence (not
depending
on others
for
one's opinion or conduct;
unwilling
to be
under obligation
to
others),
is
a matter of asserting independence
while employing
terms
which society recognizes.
The third,
of
being independent, is
exemplified
by
an
inward
struggle
for
a
knowledge
of self.
In
order
to trace the development
of
the idea
of self
during the
nineteenth century,
I have
chosen a group of novels which seem
to be
representative of
the beginning, the
middle, and the
end of
the period.
Particular
attention
is
given
to the
characterizations of
Emma
Woodhouse, Glencora Palliser, Isabel Archer, Milly Theale and
Maggie
Verver. Whereas in Jane Austen's
novels
the self
has a
definite shape
which the heroine
must
discover, and
in Anthony Trollope's
novels
the
self
(reflecting
the idea
of socially-determined man) must
learn to
accommodate social and political changes,
in Henry James's
novels
the
self
determined by
external manifestations
(hollow
man)
is
posed
against
the exercise of
the free
spirit or soul.
Jane Austen's
novels
look backward,
as she reacts against
late
eighteenth century romanticism, and
forward,
with
the development
of
the heroine
who exemplifies
intellectual independence. Anthony
Trollope's
women characters are creatures of social and political
adaptation; although
they do
not
derive their
reason
for being
from
men,
they
must accommodate
themselves to
men's wishes.
And
Henry James looks backward,
wistfully, at
Austen's
solid, comforting,
innocent
self and
forward, despairingly, to the dark,
unknowable self
of
the twentieth
century.
1985-07-01T00:00:00ZBarker, Anne Darling'Women
and
independence in the nineteenth century novel : a
study
of
Austen, Trollope
and
James', begins
with the
concept of
independence
and works through the three
most common usages of
the
word.
The first, financial independence (not
needing to
earn one's
livelihood)
appears to be
a necessary prerequisite
for the
second
and third forms
of
independence,
although it is by
no means an
unequivocal good
in
any of
the
novels.
The
second,
intellectual
independence (not
depending
on others
for
one's opinion or conduct;
unwilling
to be
under obligation
to
others),
is
a matter of asserting independence
while employing
terms
which society recognizes.
The third,
of
being independent, is
exemplified
by
an
inward
struggle
for
a
knowledge
of self.
In
order
to trace the development
of
the idea
of self
during the
nineteenth century,
I have
chosen a group of novels which seem
to be
representative of
the beginning, the
middle, and the
end of
the period.
Particular
attention
is
given
to the
characterizations of
Emma
Woodhouse, Glencora Palliser, Isabel Archer, Milly Theale and
Maggie
Verver. Whereas in Jane Austen's
novels
the self
has a
definite shape
which the heroine
must
discover, and
in Anthony Trollope's
novels
the
self
(reflecting
the idea
of socially-determined man) must
learn to
accommodate social and political changes,
in Henry James's
novels
the
self
determined by
external manifestations
(hollow
man)
is
posed
against
the exercise of
the free
spirit or soul.
Jane Austen's
novels
look backward,
as she reacts against
late
eighteenth century romanticism, and
forward,
with
the development
of
the heroine
who exemplifies
intellectual independence. Anthony
Trollope's
women characters are creatures of social and political
adaptation; although
they do
not
derive their
reason
for being
from
men,
they
must accommodate
themselves to
men's wishes.
And
Henry James looks backward,
wistfully, at
Austen's
solid, comforting,
innocent
self and
forward, despairingly, to the dark,
unknowable self
of
the twentieth
century."No word for it" : Postcolonial Anglo-Saxon in John Haynes' Letter to Patiencehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2285
This article examines a number of allusions to Old English, especially to the poem The Wanderer, in John Haynes’s award winning poem Letter to Patience (2006). A broad historical contextualisation of the use of Anglo-Saxon in modern poetry is offered first, against which Haynes’s specific poetic Anglo-Saxonism is then analysed in detail. Consideration is given to the sources – editions and translations – that Haynes used, and a sustained close reading of sections of his poem is offered in the light of this source study. The representation of English as an instrument of imperialism is discussed and juxtaposed with the use and status of early English to offer a long historical view of the politics of the vernacular. It is argued that Haynes’s poem, set partly in Nigeria, represents a new departure in the use it finds for Old English poetry, in effect constituting a kind of ‘postcolonial Anglo-Saxonism’.
2010-01-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article examines a number of allusions to Old English, especially to the poem The Wanderer, in John Haynes’s award winning poem Letter to Patience (2006). A broad historical contextualisation of the use of Anglo-Saxon in modern poetry is offered first, against which Haynes’s specific poetic Anglo-Saxonism is then analysed in detail. Consideration is given to the sources – editions and translations – that Haynes used, and a sustained close reading of sections of his poem is offered in the light of this source study. The representation of English as an instrument of imperialism is discussed and juxtaposed with the use and status of early English to offer a long historical view of the politics of the vernacular. It is argued that Haynes’s poem, set partly in Nigeria, represents a new departure in the use it finds for Old English poetry, in effect constituting a kind of ‘postcolonial Anglo-Saxonism’.The wyvern's tale : a thought experiment in Bakhtinian dual chronotope occupationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2154
The non-fiction introduction to The Wyvern’s Tale: A Thought Experiment in Bakhtinian Dual Chronotope Occupation documents the evolution of the novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, from the ideas that inspired it to its current incarnation as a full-length novel intended for an adult audience. It comprises an explanation of the novel’s main concept, Bakhtinian dual chronotope occupation, as well as an idea-focused account of the creative-writing process. Detailed in the introduction’s theoretical premise is the relationship between Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of chronotope and the carnivalesque and the ideal of the divided union in Chalcedonian Christology. This relationship revolves around the state of existing in two time-spaces at once.
The novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, explores this dual existence imaginatively using the setting of parallel worlds – the every-day world and a fictional world called Wyvern – as well as a protagonist, who functions in the fictional world as a Christ-figure. Particular thematic emphasis is placed on differing perceptions of truth and reality, and on the transformative power of costumes. The novel’s outcome, dependent on the reader’s decision as to whether dual chronotope occupation is possible or impossible, is respectively either hopeful or tragic. It attempts to reflect the outcome of the life and death of Christ depending on whether his co-existence as God and man was real or imagined.
2010-06-01T00:00:00ZNewell, MarileeThe non-fiction introduction to The Wyvern’s Tale: A Thought Experiment in Bakhtinian Dual Chronotope Occupation documents the evolution of the novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, from the ideas that inspired it to its current incarnation as a full-length novel intended for an adult audience. It comprises an explanation of the novel’s main concept, Bakhtinian dual chronotope occupation, as well as an idea-focused account of the creative-writing process. Detailed in the introduction’s theoretical premise is the relationship between Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of chronotope and the carnivalesque and the ideal of the divided union in Chalcedonian Christology. This relationship revolves around the state of existing in two time-spaces at once.
The novel, The Wyvern’s Tale, explores this dual existence imaginatively using the setting of parallel worlds – the every-day world and a fictional world called Wyvern – as well as a protagonist, who functions in the fictional world as a Christ-figure. Particular thematic emphasis is placed on differing perceptions of truth and reality, and on the transformative power of costumes. The novel’s outcome, dependent on the reader’s decision as to whether dual chronotope occupation is possible or impossible, is respectively either hopeful or tragic. It attempts to reflect the outcome of the life and death of Christ depending on whether his co-existence as God and man was real or imagined.Some lost bliss : tracing the dark night of the soul in Jack Kerouac's 'Visions of Gerard', 'The dharma bums', 'Desolation angels', and 'Big Sur' : and an excerpt from the novel 'Mayor of Hollywood'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2132
The research and creative portions of this thesis develop from the various responses
individuals experience in the wake of a loss. The research into the evolution of faith in author
Jack Kerouac's 'Duluoz Legend' and the central storyline of the novel 'Mayor of Hollywood'
spring from the same well: the crossroads between death and faith. The research piece
concerns itself with Kerouac's exploration of the spiritual interior in the wake of the death of
his protagonist's older brother, developing a personal faith that blends Buddhism and
Catholicism unfettered by formal religious practice, mirroring instead an older path of
Catholic mysticism. Mayor of Hollywood explores the opposite side of the religious coin: the
protagonist, Lucy Cassidy, has little compelling interest in her own spiritual existence but
must address the practicalities of her partner's formal practice of Catholicism, including
dietary restrictions, regular worship, moral strictures, and the religious formalization of the
guilt process. At the same time, Lucy and Mark must resolve several deaths that have
occurred, substituting the secular path of crime detection for the more spiritual quest to
reunite with God. Linked by the shared topic of death, the two halves of the thesis address
faith as a whole, exploring the interior and exterior spiritual life.
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZBrophy, Mary-BethThe research and creative portions of this thesis develop from the various responses
individuals experience in the wake of a loss. The research into the evolution of faith in author
Jack Kerouac's 'Duluoz Legend' and the central storyline of the novel 'Mayor of Hollywood'
spring from the same well: the crossroads between death and faith. The research piece
concerns itself with Kerouac's exploration of the spiritual interior in the wake of the death of
his protagonist's older brother, developing a personal faith that blends Buddhism and
Catholicism unfettered by formal religious practice, mirroring instead an older path of
Catholic mysticism. Mayor of Hollywood explores the opposite side of the religious coin: the
protagonist, Lucy Cassidy, has little compelling interest in her own spiritual existence but
must address the practicalities of her partner's formal practice of Catholicism, including
dietary restrictions, regular worship, moral strictures, and the religious formalization of the
guilt process. At the same time, Lucy and Mark must resolve several deaths that have
occurred, substituting the secular path of crime detection for the more spiritual quest to
reunite with God. Linked by the shared topic of death, the two halves of the thesis address
faith as a whole, exploring the interior and exterior spiritual life.Part 1, The balance of where we are : a theory of poetic composition in relation to cognitive poetics ; Part 2, The secret uncles : poemshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2121
Part 1 of the thesis, ‘The Balance of Where We Are: A Theory of Composition in
Relation to Cognitive Poetics’, considers a compositional theory of poetry, with particular
attention to the creative process, the poetic line, and trope. Drawing on from the disciplines of
creative writing and cognitive poetics, this thesis asserts basic and important considerations
for writing poetry.
Chapter One seeks a model for the creative process that will aid in sustaining poetic
composition but without dictating a specific method of writing. In presenting several theories
of creativity it discusses ways of understanding these mental processes in preparation for the
actual poem. It suggests an approach to poetry that will keep the writer focussed and aware of
his or her limitations.
Chapter Two establishes what it means to be writing poetry in an ‘age of cognitive
science’ where some literary scholars have made a ‘cognitive turn’, by explaining the field of
cognitive poetics. It considers specifically the cognitive poetics of Reuven Tsur as an
important theory to enhance poetic composition. It connects some of Tsur’s discussions on
poetic elements to enhance the craft-oriented approach to poetry.
Chapter Three examines the poetic line as the basic unit of a poem which any
compositional theory must consider. It reiterates the neural theory of the line as a ‘carrier
wave’ of conceptual information that is both pleasing to the ear and the mind. It then re-
evaluates specific poetic experiments concerning the line, and suggests a method of scanning
to help the contemporary reader’s awareness of poetic rhythms.
Chapter Four examines trope, specifically poetic metaphor in relation to the
assumption of conceptual metaphor theory that poetic metaphors are extensions of everyday
metaphors. It welcomes an alternative cognitive-literary explanation by re-iterating metaphor theories from Reuven Tsur and Don Paterson. Finally, it argues that the practitioner is always
writing the variation of the ‘one’ poem that he or she has discovered.
Part 2 of the thesis, ‘The Secret Uncles: Poems’, consists of my own poems.
2011-11-01T00:00:00ZManalo, Paolo MarkoPart 1 of the thesis, ‘The Balance of Where We Are: A Theory of Composition in
Relation to Cognitive Poetics’, considers a compositional theory of poetry, with particular
attention to the creative process, the poetic line, and trope. Drawing on from the disciplines of
creative writing and cognitive poetics, this thesis asserts basic and important considerations
for writing poetry.
Chapter One seeks a model for the creative process that will aid in sustaining poetic
composition but without dictating a specific method of writing. In presenting several theories
of creativity it discusses ways of understanding these mental processes in preparation for the
actual poem. It suggests an approach to poetry that will keep the writer focussed and aware of
his or her limitations.
Chapter Two establishes what it means to be writing poetry in an ‘age of cognitive
science’ where some literary scholars have made a ‘cognitive turn’, by explaining the field of
cognitive poetics. It considers specifically the cognitive poetics of Reuven Tsur as an
important theory to enhance poetic composition. It connects some of Tsur’s discussions on
poetic elements to enhance the craft-oriented approach to poetry.
Chapter Three examines the poetic line as the basic unit of a poem which any
compositional theory must consider. It reiterates the neural theory of the line as a ‘carrier
wave’ of conceptual information that is both pleasing to the ear and the mind. It then re-
evaluates specific poetic experiments concerning the line, and suggests a method of scanning
to help the contemporary reader’s awareness of poetic rhythms.
Chapter Four examines trope, specifically poetic metaphor in relation to the
assumption of conceptual metaphor theory that poetic metaphors are extensions of everyday
metaphors. It welcomes an alternative cognitive-literary explanation by re-iterating metaphor theories from Reuven Tsur and Don Paterson. Finally, it argues that the practitioner is always
writing the variation of the ‘one’ poem that he or she has discovered.
Part 2 of the thesis, ‘The Secret Uncles: Poems’, consists of my own poems.‘See SCOT and SAXON coalesc'd in one’ : James Macpherson's 'The Highlander' in its intellectual and cultural contexts, with an annotated text of the poemhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2096
This thesis explores James Macpherson’s The Highlander (1758) in relation to originality, Scottish identity and historiography. It also situates the Ossianic Collections in the context of Macpherson’s earlier poetical and later historical works. There are three parts to it: a biographical sketch of Macpherson’s early life, the annotated edition of The Highlander, and discursive commentary chapters. By examining The Highlander in detail this thesis questions the emphasis of other Macpherson criticism on the Ossianic Collections, and allows us to see him as a writer who is historically minded, very aware of sources, well versed in established forms of poetry and thoroughly, and positively, British. The Highlander stands out among the corpus of his works not because it can give us insights into the Ossianic Collections, which is its usual function in Macpherson criticism, but because it can help us understand what it is that connects Macpherson’s earlier and later works with the Ossianic Collections: history, Britishness, tradition.
Macpherson’s poetical works are united by a desire to translate Scotland’s factual past into sentimental British poetry. In the Ossianic Collections he does so without particular faithfulness to his sources, but in The Highlander he converts historical sources directly into neo-classic verse. This is where Macpherson’s originality lies: his ability to adapt history. In different styles and genres, and based on different sources, Macpherson’s works are early examples of Scotland’s great literary achievement: historical fiction. Instead of accusing him of forgery or trying to trace his knowledge of Gaelic ballads, this thesis presents Macpherson as a genuine historian who happened to write in a variety of genres.
2011-11-30T00:00:00ZLindfield-Ott, KristinThis thesis explores James Macpherson’s The Highlander (1758) in relation to originality, Scottish identity and historiography. It also situates the Ossianic Collections in the context of Macpherson’s earlier poetical and later historical works. There are three parts to it: a biographical sketch of Macpherson’s early life, the annotated edition of The Highlander, and discursive commentary chapters. By examining The Highlander in detail this thesis questions the emphasis of other Macpherson criticism on the Ossianic Collections, and allows us to see him as a writer who is historically minded, very aware of sources, well versed in established forms of poetry and thoroughly, and positively, British. The Highlander stands out among the corpus of his works not because it can give us insights into the Ossianic Collections, which is its usual function in Macpherson criticism, but because it can help us understand what it is that connects Macpherson’s earlier and later works with the Ossianic Collections: history, Britishness, tradition.
Macpherson’s poetical works are united by a desire to translate Scotland’s factual past into sentimental British poetry. In the Ossianic Collections he does so without particular faithfulness to his sources, but in The Highlander he converts historical sources directly into neo-classic verse. This is where Macpherson’s originality lies: his ability to adapt history. In different styles and genres, and based on different sources, Macpherson’s works are early examples of Scotland’s great literary achievement: historical fiction. Instead of accusing him of forgery or trying to trace his knowledge of Gaelic ballads, this thesis presents Macpherson as a genuine historian who happened to write in a variety of genres.Anglo-Saxonism in nineteenth-century poetryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2041
This article essays the first survey of nineteenth-century poetry that imitates, alludes to, or draws on, theories about Anglo-Saxon language and/or literature. Criticism has so far overlooked such a field as forming a distinct body of literature with shared preoccupations and influences, although some previous attention has been paid to the Anglo-Saxonism of individual poets or texts. This essay, then, provides the first scoping exercise of the extent and limits of a field one could term nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonist poetry. This corpus is briefly contextualized within the wider field of Anglo-Saxonist literature, itself an important sub-genre of medievalism and medievalist literature. A possible fourfold typology is offered as a framework within which further study might be continued. Some consideration is briefly paid to the use of Anglo-Saxon in the poetry of William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Alfred Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, William Barnes, William Morris, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The importance of antiquarianism and philology is emphasized, with passing reference made to writers such as Sharon Turner, George Marsh, and to the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The essay addresses a neglected topic in the broader field of the reception of the Middle Ages, and in particular the recovery and reception of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English language and poetry. The essay concludes by suggesting that new narrative models of literary history made be required to accommodate the concept of ‘nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon poetry’.
2010-05-04T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article essays the first survey of nineteenth-century poetry that imitates, alludes to, or draws on, theories about Anglo-Saxon language and/or literature. Criticism has so far overlooked such a field as forming a distinct body of literature with shared preoccupations and influences, although some previous attention has been paid to the Anglo-Saxonism of individual poets or texts. This essay, then, provides the first scoping exercise of the extent and limits of a field one could term nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonist poetry. This corpus is briefly contextualized within the wider field of Anglo-Saxonist literature, itself an important sub-genre of medievalism and medievalist literature. A possible fourfold typology is offered as a framework within which further study might be continued. Some consideration is briefly paid to the use of Anglo-Saxon in the poetry of William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Alfred Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, William Barnes, William Morris, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The importance of antiquarianism and philology is emphasized, with passing reference made to writers such as Sharon Turner, George Marsh, and to the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The essay addresses a neglected topic in the broader field of the reception of the Middle Ages, and in particular the recovery and reception of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English language and poetry. The essay concludes by suggesting that new narrative models of literary history made be required to accommodate the concept of ‘nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon poetry’.New Old English : The place of Old English in twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/2040
This article begins by noting that the narrative coherence of literary history as a genre, and the inclusions and exclusions that it is forced to make, depend on the often unacknowledged metaphors that attend its practice. Literary history which is conceived as an unbroken continuity (‘the living stream of English’) has found the incorporation of Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) to be problematic and an issue of contention. After surveying the kind of arguments that are made about the place of Old English as being within or without English literary tradition, this article notes that a vast body of twentieth and twenty-first century poetry, oblivious to those turf-wars, has concerned itself with Old English as a compositional resource. It is proposed that this poetry, a disparate and varied body of work, could be recognized as part of a cultural phenomenon: ‘The New Old English’. Academic research in this area is surveyed, from the 1970s to the present, noting that the rate of production and level of interest in New Old English has been rapidly escalating in the last decade. A range of poets and poems that display knowledge and use of Old English largely overlooked by criticism to date is then catalogued, with minimal critical discussion, in order to facilitate further investigation by other scholars. This essay argues that the widespread and large-scale reincorporation of an early phase of English poetic tradition, not in contiguous contact with contemporary writing for so many centuries, is such an unprecedented episode in the history of any vernacular that it challenges many of the metaphors through which we attempt to pattern texts into literary historical narrative. It is suggested that the weight of evidence in this area strongly suggests that in recent decades we have been living through 'The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Renaissance'.
2010-11-05T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article begins by noting that the narrative coherence of literary history as a genre, and the inclusions and exclusions that it is forced to make, depend on the often unacknowledged metaphors that attend its practice. Literary history which is conceived as an unbroken continuity (‘the living stream of English’) has found the incorporation of Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) to be problematic and an issue of contention. After surveying the kind of arguments that are made about the place of Old English as being within or without English literary tradition, this article notes that a vast body of twentieth and twenty-first century poetry, oblivious to those turf-wars, has concerned itself with Old English as a compositional resource. It is proposed that this poetry, a disparate and varied body of work, could be recognized as part of a cultural phenomenon: ‘The New Old English’. Academic research in this area is surveyed, from the 1970s to the present, noting that the rate of production and level of interest in New Old English has been rapidly escalating in the last decade. A range of poets and poems that display knowledge and use of Old English largely overlooked by criticism to date is then catalogued, with minimal critical discussion, in order to facilitate further investigation by other scholars. This essay argues that the widespread and large-scale reincorporation of an early phase of English poetic tradition, not in contiguous contact with contemporary writing for so many centuries, is such an unprecedented episode in the history of any vernacular that it challenges many of the metaphors through which we attempt to pattern texts into literary historical narrative. It is suggested that the weight of evidence in this area strongly suggests that in recent decades we have been living through 'The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Renaissance'.Lives and limbs : re-membering Robert Jones : a biographyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1986
This is a biography of Robert Jones, 1857-1933. He was a surgeon, and is credited
with bringing orthopaedics from its quack past into its scientific present. This work
explores Jones’ life and times, and examines whether he is entitled to the epithet
‘father of orthopaedics’.
It looks at the history of bonesetting, the influences on Jones’ development
and medical training, and some key moments in his career – notably his involvement
in the building of the Manchester Ship Canal, the planning of Heswall Children’s
Hospital, and the Great War. It argues that although there are other medical men
who could have been credited with fathering orthopaedics, he is indeed the father –
at least of orthopaedics in Britain, if not internationally.
This version of Jones’ life begins with something of his biographer’s journey,
before it explores what and who influenced Jones, and in turn what his legacy has
been to the medical profession.
The accompanying Critical Commentary explores whether or not it is possible
to offer a definition of biography as a genre in the light of its history and purpose. It
examines critical views, considers the mythology that grows up around historical
figures, and also explains the rationale for the structure chosen for organising the
material presented in this new biography of Robert Jones, Live and Limbs: Re-membering Robert Jones.
2010-01-01T00:00:00ZBonetti (née Whiteley), JoannaThis is a biography of Robert Jones, 1857-1933. He was a surgeon, and is credited
with bringing orthopaedics from its quack past into its scientific present. This work
explores Jones’ life and times, and examines whether he is entitled to the epithet
‘father of orthopaedics’.
It looks at the history of bonesetting, the influences on Jones’ development
and medical training, and some key moments in his career – notably his involvement
in the building of the Manchester Ship Canal, the planning of Heswall Children’s
Hospital, and the Great War. It argues that although there are other medical men
who could have been credited with fathering orthopaedics, he is indeed the father –
at least of orthopaedics in Britain, if not internationally.
This version of Jones’ life begins with something of his biographer’s journey,
before it explores what and who influenced Jones, and in turn what his legacy has
been to the medical profession.
The accompanying Critical Commentary explores whether or not it is possible
to offer a definition of biography as a genre in the light of its history and purpose. It
examines critical views, considers the mythology that grows up around historical
figures, and also explains the rationale for the structure chosen for organising the
material presented in this new biography of Robert Jones, Live and Limbs: Re-membering Robert Jones.The life of Sir Walter Scott, [by] John Macrone ; edited with a biographical introduction by Daniel Graderhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1979
John Macrone (1809-1837) was a Scotsman who arrived in London around 1830 and became a publisher, in partnership with James Cochrane between January 1833 and August 1834, and independently between October 1834 and his death in September 1837. A friend of Dickens and Thackeray, he published Sketches by Boz and, posthumously, The Paris Sketch Book. One of his other projects was a life of Scott, which he began to write soon after the death of the novelist; but his book, chiefly remembered because Hogg wrote his Anecdotes of Scott for inclusion in it, fell under the displeasure of Lockhart, and was cancelled shortly before it was to have been published. A fragmentary manuscript, however, was recently discovered by the author of this thesis and has now been edited for the first time, together with a biographical study of Macrone, in which extensive use is made of previously unpublished and uncollected material.
2010-11-30T00:00:00ZMacrone, JohnGrader, DanielJohn Macrone (1809-1837) was a Scotsman who arrived in London around 1830 and became a publisher, in partnership with James Cochrane between January 1833 and August 1834, and independently between October 1834 and his death in September 1837. A friend of Dickens and Thackeray, he published Sketches by Boz and, posthumously, The Paris Sketch Book. One of his other projects was a life of Scott, which he began to write soon after the death of the novelist; but his book, chiefly remembered because Hogg wrote his Anecdotes of Scott for inclusion in it, fell under the displeasure of Lockhart, and was cancelled shortly before it was to have been published. A fragmentary manuscript, however, was recently discovered by the author of this thesis and has now been edited for the first time, together with a biographical study of Macrone, in which extensive use is made of previously unpublished and uncollected material.A swipe at the dragon of the commonplace : a re-evaluation of George MacDonald's fictionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1974
This thesis offers a re-evaluation of the fiction of George MacDonald (1824-1905), both fantasy and non-fantasy. The general trend in MacDonald studies is to focus primarily on his works of fantasy, either ignoring the rest (which includes non-fantasy fiction, sermons, poetry, and criticism) or using them to illuminate the fantasies. The overall critical consensus is that these works, particularly MacDonald’s non-fantasy fiction, possess little inherent value. Though many critics acknowledge similarities between MacDonald’s fantasy fiction and his non-fantasy fiction, MacDonald has been the victim of a critical double standard that treats fantasy and realism as completely irreconcilable, and allows certain features to be acceptable, even desirable, in one form that are completely unacceptable in the other. The thesis begins by looking at MacDonald’s writings about the imagination and about literature, from which a clear theory of literature emerges, one with strong opinions about the function and purpose of literature, as well as about what makes good literature. By re-examining MacDonald’s fiction, its plots, characterization and narration, in the light of his own theories, the reasons underlying the artistic choices made throughout his fiction take on a more deliberate and calculated appearance. Furthermore, by placing MacDonald in his proper context, and looking at the diversity of generic options available to the Victorian writer, the critical double standard underlying much MacDonald scholarship, based on a strict fantasy/realism separation, crumbles. What emerges from this analysis is a different MacDonald—a careful craftsman who consciously and skillfully uses the tools of his trade to produce a unique and specific reading experience.
2011-11-30T00:00:00ZStelle, GingerThis thesis offers a re-evaluation of the fiction of George MacDonald (1824-1905), both fantasy and non-fantasy. The general trend in MacDonald studies is to focus primarily on his works of fantasy, either ignoring the rest (which includes non-fantasy fiction, sermons, poetry, and criticism) or using them to illuminate the fantasies. The overall critical consensus is that these works, particularly MacDonald’s non-fantasy fiction, possess little inherent value. Though many critics acknowledge similarities between MacDonald’s fantasy fiction and his non-fantasy fiction, MacDonald has been the victim of a critical double standard that treats fantasy and realism as completely irreconcilable, and allows certain features to be acceptable, even desirable, in one form that are completely unacceptable in the other. The thesis begins by looking at MacDonald’s writings about the imagination and about literature, from which a clear theory of literature emerges, one with strong opinions about the function and purpose of literature, as well as about what makes good literature. By re-examining MacDonald’s fiction, its plots, characterization and narration, in the light of his own theories, the reasons underlying the artistic choices made throughout his fiction take on a more deliberate and calculated appearance. Furthermore, by placing MacDonald in his proper context, and looking at the diversity of generic options available to the Victorian writer, the critical double standard underlying much MacDonald scholarship, based on a strict fantasy/realism separation, crumbles. What emerges from this analysis is a different MacDonald—a careful craftsman who consciously and skillfully uses the tools of his trade to produce a unique and specific reading experience.Fantasy as a mode in British and Irish literary decadence, 1885–1925http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1964
This Ph.D. thesis investigates the use of fantasy by British and Irish 'Decadent' authors and illustrators, including Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, 'Vernon Lee' (Violet Paget), Ernest Dowson, and Charles Ricketts. Furthermore, this study demonstrates why fantasy was an apposite form for literary Decadence, which is defined in this thesis as a supra-generic
mode characterized by its anti-mimetic impulse, its view of language as autonomous and artificial, its frequent use of parody and pastiche, and its transgression of boundaries between art forms. Literary Decadence in the United Kingdom derives its view of autonomous language from Anglo-German Romantic philology and literature, consequently being distinguished from French
Decadence by its resistance to realism and Naturalism, which assume language's power to signify the 'real world'. Understanding language to be inorganic, Decadent writers blithely countermand notions of linguistic fitness and employ devices such as catachresis, paradox, and tautology, which in turn emphasize the self-referentiality of Decadent texts. Fantasy furthers the Decadent argument about language because works of fantasy bear no specific relationship to 'reality'; they can express anything evocable within language, as J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates with his example
of "the green sun" (a phrase that can exist independent of the sun's actually being green). The thesis argues that fantasy's usefulness in underscoring arguments about linguistic autonomy explains its widespread presence in Decadent prose and visual art, especially in genres that had become associated with realism and Naturalism, such as the novel (Chapter 1), the short story
(Chapter 3), drama (Chapter 4), and textual illustration (Chapter 2). The thesis also analyzes Decadents' use of a wholly non-realistic genre, the fairy tale (see Chapter 5), in order to delineate the consequences of their use of fantasy for the construction of character and gender within their texts.
2011-06-21T00:00:00ZMercurio, Jeremiah RomanoThis Ph.D. thesis investigates the use of fantasy by British and Irish 'Decadent' authors and illustrators, including Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, 'Vernon Lee' (Violet Paget), Ernest Dowson, and Charles Ricketts. Furthermore, this study demonstrates why fantasy was an apposite form for literary Decadence, which is defined in this thesis as a supra-generic
mode characterized by its anti-mimetic impulse, its view of language as autonomous and artificial, its frequent use of parody and pastiche, and its transgression of boundaries between art forms. Literary Decadence in the United Kingdom derives its view of autonomous language from Anglo-German Romantic philology and literature, consequently being distinguished from French
Decadence by its resistance to realism and Naturalism, which assume language's power to signify the 'real world'. Understanding language to be inorganic, Decadent writers blithely countermand notions of linguistic fitness and employ devices such as catachresis, paradox, and tautology, which in turn emphasize the self-referentiality of Decadent texts. Fantasy furthers the Decadent argument about language because works of fantasy bear no specific relationship to 'reality'; they can express anything evocable within language, as J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates with his example
of "the green sun" (a phrase that can exist independent of the sun's actually being green). The thesis argues that fantasy's usefulness in underscoring arguments about linguistic autonomy explains its widespread presence in Decadent prose and visual art, especially in genres that had become associated with realism and Naturalism, such as the novel (Chapter 1), the short story
(Chapter 3), drama (Chapter 4), and textual illustration (Chapter 2). The thesis also analyzes Decadents' use of a wholly non-realistic genre, the fairy tale (see Chapter 5), in order to delineate the consequences of their use of fantasy for the construction of character and gender within their texts.Words incarnate : contemporary women’s fiction as religious revisionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1961
This thesis investigates the prevalence of religious themes in the work of several prominent contemporary women writers—Margaret Atwood, Michèle Roberts, Alice Walker and A.L. Kennedy. Relying on Luce Irigaray’s recent theorisations of the religious and its relationship to feminine subjectivity, this research considers the subversive potential of engaging with religious discourse through literature, and contributes to burgeoning criticism of feminist revisionary writing. The novels analysed in this thesis show, often in violent detail, that the way the religious dimension has been conceptualised and articulated enforces negative views of female sexuality, justifies violence against the body, alienates women from autonomous creative expression and paralyses the development of a subjectivity in the feminine. Rather than looking at women’s religious revision primarily as a means of asserting female authority, as previous studies have done, I argue that these writers, in addition to critiquing patriarchal religion, articulate ways of being and knowing that subvert the binary logic that dominates Western religious discourse. Chapter I contextualises this research in Luce Irigaray’s theories and outlines existing work on feminist revisionist literature. The remaining chapters offer close readings of key novels in light of these theories: Chapter II examines Atwood’s interrogation of oppositional logic in religious discourse through her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Chapter III explores two novels by Roberts that expose the violence inherent in religious discourse and deconstruct the subjection of the (female) body to the (masculine) Word. Chapters IV and V analyse the fiction of Kennedy and Walker respectively, revealing how their novels confront the religious denigration of feminine sexuality and refigure the connection between eroticism and divinity. Evident in each of these fictional accounts is a forceful critique of religious discourse, as well as an attempt to more closely reconcile foundational religious oppositions between divinity and humanity, flesh and spirit, and body and Word.
2011-06-21T00:00:00ZRine, AbigailThis thesis investigates the prevalence of religious themes in the work of several prominent contemporary women writers—Margaret Atwood, Michèle Roberts, Alice Walker and A.L. Kennedy. Relying on Luce Irigaray’s recent theorisations of the religious and its relationship to feminine subjectivity, this research considers the subversive potential of engaging with religious discourse through literature, and contributes to burgeoning criticism of feminist revisionary writing. The novels analysed in this thesis show, often in violent detail, that the way the religious dimension has been conceptualised and articulated enforces negative views of female sexuality, justifies violence against the body, alienates women from autonomous creative expression and paralyses the development of a subjectivity in the feminine. Rather than looking at women’s religious revision primarily as a means of asserting female authority, as previous studies have done, I argue that these writers, in addition to critiquing patriarchal religion, articulate ways of being and knowing that subvert the binary logic that dominates Western religious discourse. Chapter I contextualises this research in Luce Irigaray’s theories and outlines existing work on feminist revisionist literature. The remaining chapters offer close readings of key novels in light of these theories: Chapter II examines Atwood’s interrogation of oppositional logic in religious discourse through her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Chapter III explores two novels by Roberts that expose the violence inherent in religious discourse and deconstruct the subjection of the (female) body to the (masculine) Word. Chapters IV and V analyse the fiction of Kennedy and Walker respectively, revealing how their novels confront the religious denigration of feminine sexuality and refigure the connection between eroticism and divinity. Evident in each of these fictional accounts is a forceful critique of religious discourse, as well as an attempt to more closely reconcile foundational religious oppositions between divinity and humanity, flesh and spirit, and body and Word.Living in the past : Thebes, periodization, and The Two Noble Kinsmenhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1852
Our sense of the distinction between the "medieval" and the "early modern" is structured by two notions: that the early modern period is characterized by the death of a chivalric culture that is dominant in the medieval period; and that the early modern is distinguished from the medieval by its superior historical self-awareness. This essay reassesses these themes through a reading of Shakespeare and Fletcher's The Two Noble Kinsmen (1634). This is a play of knighthood and chivalric spectacle, adapted from Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which brings Chaucer on stage in the play's prologue. Reading the play through a tradition of "Theban" narratives that proliferated from antiquity through the Middle Ages shows that the representation of chivalric culture in The Two Noble Kinsmen constructs a vision of the past very different from how modern accounts distinguish between medieval and early modern cultures.
2010-01-01T00:00:00ZDavis, Alexander LeeOur sense of the distinction between the "medieval" and the "early modern" is structured by two notions: that the early modern period is characterized by the death of a chivalric culture that is dominant in the medieval period; and that the early modern is distinguished from the medieval by its superior historical self-awareness. This essay reassesses these themes through a reading of Shakespeare and Fletcher's The Two Noble Kinsmen (1634). This is a play of knighthood and chivalric spectacle, adapted from Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which brings Chaucer on stage in the play's prologue. Reading the play through a tradition of "Theban" narratives that proliferated from antiquity through the Middle Ages shows that the representation of chivalric culture in The Two Noble Kinsmen constructs a vision of the past very different from how modern accounts distinguish between medieval and early modern cultures.St Andrews University Library in the eighteenth century : Scottish education and print-culturehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1848
The context of this thesis is the growth in size and significance of the St Andrews University Library, made possible by the University's entitlement, under the Copyright Acts between 1709 and 1836, to free copies of new publications. Chapter I shows how the University used its improving Library to present to clients and visitors an image of the University's social and intellectual ideology. Both medium and message in this case told of a migration into the printed book of the University's functions, intellectual, spiritual, and moral, a migration which was going forward likewise in the other Scottish universities and in Scottish culture at large. Chapters II and III chart that migration respectively in religious discourse and in moral education. This growing importance of the book prompted some Scottish professors to devise agencies other than consumer demand to control what was read in their universities and beyond, and indeed what was printed. Chapter IV reviews those devices, one of which was the subject Rhetoric, now being reformed to bring modern literature into its discipline. Chapter V argues that the new Rhetoric tended in fact to confirm the hegemony of print by turning literary study from a general literary apprenticeship into the specialist reading of canonical printed texts. That tendency was not without opposition. Chapter VI analyses the challenge from traditional oral culture as it was expressed in the marginalia added to the Library books at St Andrews University by its students, and argues that this dissident culture helped to form the voice of the poet Robert Fergusson while he was one of those students. Chapter VII goes on to show how Fergusson used that voice to warn his countrymen of the threat which print represented to their culture, and to show how it might be resisted in the interests of both literature and conviviality.
1999-01-01T00:00:00ZSimpson, MatthewThe context of this thesis is the growth in size and significance of the St Andrews University Library, made possible by the University's entitlement, under the Copyright Acts between 1709 and 1836, to free copies of new publications. Chapter I shows how the University used its improving Library to present to clients and visitors an image of the University's social and intellectual ideology. Both medium and message in this case told of a migration into the printed book of the University's functions, intellectual, spiritual, and moral, a migration which was going forward likewise in the other Scottish universities and in Scottish culture at large. Chapters II and III chart that migration respectively in religious discourse and in moral education. This growing importance of the book prompted some Scottish professors to devise agencies other than consumer demand to control what was read in their universities and beyond, and indeed what was printed. Chapter IV reviews those devices, one of which was the subject Rhetoric, now being reformed to bring modern literature into its discipline. Chapter V argues that the new Rhetoric tended in fact to confirm the hegemony of print by turning literary study from a general literary apprenticeship into the specialist reading of canonical printed texts. That tendency was not without opposition. Chapter VI analyses the challenge from traditional oral culture as it was expressed in the marginalia added to the Library books at St Andrews University by its students, and argues that this dissident culture helped to form the voice of the poet Robert Fergusson while he was one of those students. Chapter VII goes on to show how Fergusson used that voice to warn his countrymen of the threat which print represented to their culture, and to show how it might be resisted in the interests of both literature and conviviality.The singin lass : a reflection on the life of the poet Marion Angus (1865-1946) in the form of an account of her life and work, and three extracts from 'Blackthorn', a novelhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1846
Part 1 of this thesis comprises a biography which, for the first time, places Marion Angus within her historical, family and social context. A version of this was published as the introduction to my edited collection The Singin Lass: Selected Work of Marion Angus (Polygon, 2006). Assumptions made about the poet's activities and attitudes derive from critical reading of archival material: her published 'diaries', letters and prose, as well as her poetry. The appraisal of her work places it within literary contexts. The development of her linguistic awareness of the Scots language is traced and the extent of her commitment to it noted. I conclude that assessment of her work has frequently been affected by erroneous judgements about her lifestyle and that the poetry, which has greater depth than it sometimes is given credit for, illuminates her struggle rather than defines her character. Her strength and resilience, as well as her contribution to Scots literature, should be respected and admired. Part II comprises three extracts from Blackthorn, a novel based on aspects of the life and work of Marion Angus. My starting point was the marked contrast between her earlier prose and her later poetry. This, I believe, reflects an actual family crisis which is central to my narrative. The extracts presented here (dated 1900, 1930 and 1945-46) present a credible alternative to inaccurate assumptions which were made about her life. I explore two actual significant relationships in her life: with a sister who becomes wholly dependent on her, and with a younger friend who looks after her in her final year. In the absence of any firm evidence of lovers, I speculate on other relationships.
2010-06-01T00:00:00ZChalmers, Aimée Y.Part 1 of this thesis comprises a biography which, for the first time, places Marion Angus within her historical, family and social context. A version of this was published as the introduction to my edited collection The Singin Lass: Selected Work of Marion Angus (Polygon, 2006). Assumptions made about the poet's activities and attitudes derive from critical reading of archival material: her published 'diaries', letters and prose, as well as her poetry. The appraisal of her work places it within literary contexts. The development of her linguistic awareness of the Scots language is traced and the extent of her commitment to it noted. I conclude that assessment of her work has frequently been affected by erroneous judgements about her lifestyle and that the poetry, which has greater depth than it sometimes is given credit for, illuminates her struggle rather than defines her character. Her strength and resilience, as well as her contribution to Scots literature, should be respected and admired. Part II comprises three extracts from Blackthorn, a novel based on aspects of the life and work of Marion Angus. My starting point was the marked contrast between her earlier prose and her later poetry. This, I believe, reflects an actual family crisis which is central to my narrative. The extracts presented here (dated 1900, 1930 and 1945-46) present a credible alternative to inaccurate assumptions which were made about her life. I explore two actual significant relationships in her life: with a sister who becomes wholly dependent on her, and with a younger friend who looks after her in her final year. In the absence of any firm evidence of lovers, I speculate on other relationships.Sound effects : The oral/aural dimensions of literature in English Introductionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1802
Sound Effects traces the history of the relationship between oral conditions and aural effect in English literature from its beginnings in the Anglo-Saxon period through to the twenty-first century. Few collections nowadays, other than textbook histories, would attempt a survey of their field from the early middle ages to the present day, and it is not our intention here to offer a continuous narrative. But despite the many centuries covered by this collection, the reader will find that certain themes recur in different contexts and that the individual essays speak to each other, often over long distances of time. It ends where it might have begun, with Homer, though in modern English form. The effect of this pattern is to create an “envelope” structure in which the ancient oral forms of Greek and Anglo-Saxon verse reappear as contexts for understanding how these forms survive and how sound works in the poetry of the modern world. The scope of the volume is also determined by its subject, since we are concerned with tradition as well as with the oral and aural. In particular, we are concerned with how literary production and reception respond to the different waves of media evolution from oral to written, manuscript to print (and the theater), and the later development of machine technology. We are not specifically concerned with the computer and the Internet, though they are an unstated presence behind the project as a whole. A subsidiary theme is the way in which sound, understood in both oral and aural terms, provides the agency through which high and low, elite and popular cultures are brought into conjunction throughout English literature.
2009-10-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisRhodes, NeilSound Effects traces the history of the relationship between oral conditions and aural effect in English literature from its beginnings in the Anglo-Saxon period through to the twenty-first century. Few collections nowadays, other than textbook histories, would attempt a survey of their field from the early middle ages to the present day, and it is not our intention here to offer a continuous narrative. But despite the many centuries covered by this collection, the reader will find that certain themes recur in different contexts and that the individual essays speak to each other, often over long distances of time. It ends where it might have begun, with Homer, though in modern English form. The effect of this pattern is to create an “envelope” structure in which the ancient oral forms of Greek and Anglo-Saxon verse reappear as contexts for understanding how these forms survive and how sound works in the poetry of the modern world. The scope of the volume is also determined by its subject, since we are concerned with tradition as well as with the oral and aural. In particular, we are concerned with how literary production and reception respond to the different waves of media evolution from oral to written, manuscript to print (and the theater), and the later development of machine technology. We are not specifically concerned with the computer and the Internet, though they are an unstated presence behind the project as a whole. A subsidiary theme is the way in which sound, understood in both oral and aural terms, provides the agency through which high and low, elite and popular cultures are brought into conjunction throughout English literature."Where now the harp?" Listening for the sounds of Old English verse, from Beowulf to the twentieth centuryhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1801
This essay examines the representation or staging of oral performance and poetic composition within Beowulf, in order to argue that poem thematizes and mythologizes its own origins, and is as much interested in recovering the sounds of oral performances that pre-date its own manuscript inscription as modern Anglo-Saxon scholarship has been. The second half of the essay considers the recovery and reimagining of an Anglo-Saxon “soundscape” in the work of two twentieth-century poets, W. S. Graham and Edwin Morgan. The invocation of this “Saxonesque” patterning of sound invokes or triggers a historically constituted set of associations with the whole body of Old English poetry; that is, an allusion to a corpus, rather than to a specific text, is made through sound patterning.
Additional multimedia to accompany this article is available from http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/24ii/jones
2009-10-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis essay examines the representation or staging of oral performance and poetic composition within Beowulf, in order to argue that poem thematizes and mythologizes its own origins, and is as much interested in recovering the sounds of oral performances that pre-date its own manuscript inscription as modern Anglo-Saxon scholarship has been. The second half of the essay considers the recovery and reimagining of an Anglo-Saxon “soundscape” in the work of two twentieth-century poets, W. S. Graham and Edwin Morgan. The invocation of this “Saxonesque” patterning of sound invokes or triggers a historically constituted set of associations with the whole body of Old English poetry; that is, an allusion to a corpus, rather than to a specific text, is made through sound patterning.Rethinking the 'Spectacle of the Scaffold' : Juridical Epistemologies and English Revenge Tragedyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/1620
Michel Foucault's analysis of penal torture as part of a regime of truth production continues to be routinely applied to the interpretation of English Renaissance drama. This paper argues that such an application misleadingly overlooks the lay participation that was characteristic of English criminal justice. It goes on to explore the implications of the epistemological differences between continental inquisitorial models of trial and the jury trial as it developed in sixteenth-century England, arguing that rhetorical and political differences between these two models are dramatized in the unfolding action of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.
2005-12-01T00:00:00ZHutson, Lorna MargaretMichel Foucault's analysis of penal torture as part of a regime of truth production continues to be routinely applied to the interpretation of English Renaissance drama. This paper argues that such an application misleadingly overlooks the lay participation that was characteristic of English criminal justice. It goes on to explore the implications of the epistemological differences between continental inquisitorial models of trial and the jury trial as it developed in sixteenth-century England, arguing that rhetorical and political differences between these two models are dramatized in the unfolding action of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.A rhetoric of nostalgia on the English stage, 1587-1605http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1001
In locating the idea of nostalgia in early modern English drama, ‘A Rhetoric of Nostalgia on the English Stage, 1587-1605’ recovers an influential and under-examined political discourse in Elizabethan drama. Recognizing how deeply Renaissance culture was invested in conceptualizing the past as past and in privileging the cultural practices and processes of memory, this thesis asserts nostalgia’s embeddedness within that culture and its consequently powerful rhetorical role on the English Renaissance stage.
The introduction situates Elizabethan nostalgia alongside nostalgia’s postmodern conceptualizations. It identifies how my definition of early modern nostalgia both depends on and diverges from contemporary arguments about nostalgia, as it questions nostalgia’s perceived conservatism and asserts its radicalizing potential. I define a rhetoric of nostalgia with regard to classical and Renaissance ideas of rhetoric and locate it within a body of sixteenth-century political discourses.
In the ensuing chapters, my analyses of Shakespeare’s drama formulate case studies reached, in each instance, through an exploration of the plays’ socio-political context. Chapter Two’s analysis of The First Part of the Contention contextualizes Shakespeare’s development of a rhetoric of nostalgia and investigates connections between rhetorical form and nostalgia. I demonstrate the cultural currency of the play’s nostalgic proverbial discourse through a discussion of Protestant writers interested in mocking the idea of a preferable Catholic past. Chapter Three argues that Richard II’s nostalgic discourse of lost hospitality functions as a political rhetoric evocative of the socio-economic problems of the mid-1590s and of the changing landscape of English tradition instigated by the Reformation. In Chapter Four, Julius Caesar and Ben Jonson’s Sejanus constitute a final analysis of the relationship between a rhetoric of nostalgia and politics by examining the rise of Tacitism. The plays’ nostalgic language stimulates an awareness to the myriad ways in which rhetoric questions politics in both dramas.
2010-06-22T00:00:00ZJohanson, KristineIn locating the idea of nostalgia in early modern English drama, ‘A Rhetoric of Nostalgia on the English Stage, 1587-1605’ recovers an influential and under-examined political discourse in Elizabethan drama. Recognizing how deeply Renaissance culture was invested in conceptualizing the past as past and in privileging the cultural practices and processes of memory, this thesis asserts nostalgia’s embeddedness within that culture and its consequently powerful rhetorical role on the English Renaissance stage.
The introduction situates Elizabethan nostalgia alongside nostalgia’s postmodern conceptualizations. It identifies how my definition of early modern nostalgia both depends on and diverges from contemporary arguments about nostalgia, as it questions nostalgia’s perceived conservatism and asserts its radicalizing potential. I define a rhetoric of nostalgia with regard to classical and Renaissance ideas of rhetoric and locate it within a body of sixteenth-century political discourses.
In the ensuing chapters, my analyses of Shakespeare’s drama formulate case studies reached, in each instance, through an exploration of the plays’ socio-political context. Chapter Two’s analysis of The First Part of the Contention contextualizes Shakespeare’s development of a rhetoric of nostalgia and investigates connections between rhetorical form and nostalgia. I demonstrate the cultural currency of the play’s nostalgic proverbial discourse through a discussion of Protestant writers interested in mocking the idea of a preferable Catholic past. Chapter Three argues that Richard II’s nostalgic discourse of lost hospitality functions as a political rhetoric evocative of the socio-economic problems of the mid-1590s and of the changing landscape of English tradition instigated by the Reformation. In Chapter Four, Julius Caesar and Ben Jonson’s Sejanus constitute a final analysis of the relationship between a rhetoric of nostalgia and politics by examining the rise of Tacitism. The plays’ nostalgic language stimulates an awareness to the myriad ways in which rhetoric questions politics in both dramas.The sixth sense : synaesthesia and British aestheticism, 1860-1900http://hdl.handle.net/10023/952
“The Sixth Sense: Synaesthesia and British Aestheticism 1860-1900” is an
interdisciplinary examination of the emergence of synaesthesia conceptually and
rhetorically within the ‘art for art’s sake’ movement in mid-to-late Victorian Britain.
Chapter One investigates Swinburne’s focal role as both theorist and literary spokesman
for the nascent British Aesthetic movement. I argue that Swinburne was the first to
practice what Pater meant by ‘aesthetic criticism’ and that synaesthesia played a decisive
role in ‘Aestheticising’ critical discourse.
Chapter Two examines Whistler’s varied motivations for using synaesthetic metaphor,
the way that synaesthesia informed his identity as an aesthete, and the way that critical
reactions to his work played a formative role in linking synaesthesia with Aestheticism in
the popular imagination of Victorian England.
Chapter Three explores Pater’s methods and style as an ‘aesthetic critic.’ Even more than
Swinburne, Pater blurred the distinction between criticism and creation. I use
‘synaesthesia’ to contextualise Pater’s theory of “Anders-streben” and to further
contribute to our understanding of his infamous musical paradigm as a linguistic ideal,
which governed his own approach to critical language.
Chapter Four considers Wilde’s decadent redevelopment of synaesthetic metaphor. I use
‘synaesthesia’ to locate Wilde’s style and theory of style within the context of decadence;
or, to put it another way, to locate decadence within the context of Wilde.
Each chapter examines the highly nuanced claim that art should exist for its own sake and
the ways in which artists in the mid-to-late Victorian period attempted to realise this
desire on theoretical and rhetorical levels.
2009-11-01T00:00:00ZPoueymirou, Margaux Lynn Rosa“The Sixth Sense: Synaesthesia and British Aestheticism 1860-1900” is an
interdisciplinary examination of the emergence of synaesthesia conceptually and
rhetorically within the ‘art for art’s sake’ movement in mid-to-late Victorian Britain.
Chapter One investigates Swinburne’s focal role as both theorist and literary spokesman
for the nascent British Aesthetic movement. I argue that Swinburne was the first to
practice what Pater meant by ‘aesthetic criticism’ and that synaesthesia played a decisive
role in ‘Aestheticising’ critical discourse.
Chapter Two examines Whistler’s varied motivations for using synaesthetic metaphor,
the way that synaesthesia informed his identity as an aesthete, and the way that critical
reactions to his work played a formative role in linking synaesthesia with Aestheticism in
the popular imagination of Victorian England.
Chapter Three explores Pater’s methods and style as an ‘aesthetic critic.’ Even more than
Swinburne, Pater blurred the distinction between criticism and creation. I use
‘synaesthesia’ to contextualise Pater’s theory of “Anders-streben” and to further
contribute to our understanding of his infamous musical paradigm as a linguistic ideal,
which governed his own approach to critical language.
Chapter Four considers Wilde’s decadent redevelopment of synaesthetic metaphor. I use
‘synaesthesia’ to locate Wilde’s style and theory of style within the context of decadence;
or, to put it another way, to locate decadence within the context of Wilde.
Each chapter examines the highly nuanced claim that art should exist for its own sake and
the ways in which artists in the mid-to-late Victorian period attempted to realise this
desire on theoretical and rhetorical levels.Dark saying: a study of the Jobian dilemma in relation to contemporary ars poetica ; Bedrock: poemshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/906
Part I of this thesis has been written with a view to exploring the relevance a text over 2500 years old has for contemporary ars poetica. From a detailed study of ‘The Book of Job’ I highlight three main tropes, ‘cognitive dissonance’, ‘tĕšuvah’, and ‘dark saying’, and demonstrate how these might inform the working methods of the contemporary poet. In the introduction I define these tropes in their theological and historical context. Chapter one provides a detailed examination of ‘Job’, its antecedents and its influence on literature. In chapters two and three I examine in detail techniques of Classical Hebrew poetry employed in ‘Job’ and argue for a confluence between literary technique and Jobian cosmology.
Stylistically, the rest of the thesis is a critical meditation on how the main tropes of ‘Job’ can be mapped onto contemporary ars poetica. In chapter four I initiate an exploration into varying responses to cognitive dissonance, suggesting how the false comforters and Job represent different approaches to, and stages of, poetic composition. A critique of an essay by David Daiches is followed by a detailed study of Seamus Heaney.
In chapter five I map the trope of tĕšuvah onto contemporary ars poetica with reference to the poetry of Pilinszky, Popa, and to the poems and critical work of Ted Hughes. The chapter concludes with a brief exploration into the common ground shared between the terms tĕšuvah and versus as a means of highlighting the importance of proper maturation of the work.
Chapter six consists of a discussion of how the kind of ‘dark saying’ found in ‘Job’ 38-41 impacts on an understanding of poetic language and its capacity to accelerate our comprehension of reality. I support this notion with excerpts from Joseph Brodsky and a close reading of Montale’s ‘L’anguilla’.
Chapter seven further develops the notion of poetry as a means of propulsion beyond the familiar, the predictable or the clichéd, by examining the function of metaphor and what I term ‘quick thinking’, and by referring to two recently published poems by John Burnside and Don Paterson.
In chapter eight I draw out the overall motif implied by a close reading of ‘Job’, that of the weathering of an ordeal, and map this onto ars poetica, looking at two aspects of labour, which I identify as ‘endurance’ and ‘letting go’, crucial for the proper maturation of a poem or body of poems.
The concluding chapter develops the theme of the temple first discussed in chapter one. I argue for a connection between Job as a temple initiate, who has the capacity to atone for the false comforters, and poetry as a form of ‘at-one-ment’. This notion is supported by reference to Geoffrey Hill and Rilke.
Part II of the thesis consists of a selection of my own poems, titled ‘Bedrock’.
2009-01-01T00:00:00ZBoast, RachaelPart I of this thesis has been written with a view to exploring the relevance a text over 2500 years old has for contemporary ars poetica. From a detailed study of ‘The Book of Job’ I highlight three main tropes, ‘cognitive dissonance’, ‘tĕšuvah’, and ‘dark saying’, and demonstrate how these might inform the working methods of the contemporary poet. In the introduction I define these tropes in their theological and historical context. Chapter one provides a detailed examination of ‘Job’, its antecedents and its influence on literature. In chapters two and three I examine in detail techniques of Classical Hebrew poetry employed in ‘Job’ and argue for a confluence between literary technique and Jobian cosmology.
Stylistically, the rest of the thesis is a critical meditation on how the main tropes of ‘Job’ can be mapped onto contemporary ars poetica. In chapter four I initiate an exploration into varying responses to cognitive dissonance, suggesting how the false comforters and Job represent different approaches to, and stages of, poetic composition. A critique of an essay by David Daiches is followed by a detailed study of Seamus Heaney.
In chapter five I map the trope of tĕšuvah onto contemporary ars poetica with reference to the poetry of Pilinszky, Popa, and to the poems and critical work of Ted Hughes. The chapter concludes with a brief exploration into the common ground shared between the terms tĕšuvah and versus as a means of highlighting the importance of proper maturation of the work.
Chapter six consists of a discussion of how the kind of ‘dark saying’ found in ‘Job’ 38-41 impacts on an understanding of poetic language and its capacity to accelerate our comprehension of reality. I support this notion with excerpts from Joseph Brodsky and a close reading of Montale’s ‘L’anguilla’.
Chapter seven further develops the notion of poetry as a means of propulsion beyond the familiar, the predictable or the clichéd, by examining the function of metaphor and what I term ‘quick thinking’, and by referring to two recently published poems by John Burnside and Don Paterson.
In chapter eight I draw out the overall motif implied by a close reading of ‘Job’, that of the weathering of an ordeal, and map this onto ars poetica, looking at two aspects of labour, which I identify as ‘endurance’ and ‘letting go’, crucial for the proper maturation of a poem or body of poems.
The concluding chapter develops the theme of the temple first discussed in chapter one. I argue for a connection between Job as a temple initiate, who has the capacity to atone for the false comforters, and poetry as a form of ‘at-one-ment’. This notion is supported by reference to Geoffrey Hill and Rilke.
Part II of the thesis consists of a selection of my own poems, titled ‘Bedrock’.The uncocked gun? representations of masculinity in contemporary crime fictionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/898
This thesis examines the representation of masculinity in the work of three contemporary male crime writers – George Pelecanos, Henning Mankell and Ian Rankin. It considers whether or not the feminist movement, and the resultant deconstruction of gendered identity, has had an impact on the work of male authors. As the topic of masculinity becomes increasingly visible both within sociological discourse and popular culture, have male writers sought to critically engage with their own gender roles or are they more concerned with propagating hegemonic norms? Crime fiction has a history of accommodating revisionist, feminist projects but is there similar space in the genre for male writers to create viable, non-phallic detective heroes?
By focusing on writers of three different nationalities – Pelecanos is American, Mankell is Swedish and Rankin is from the UK – the thesis examines the interaction between masculinity and national identity, and compares the extent to which American, Swedish and British masculinity can be viewed as being ‘in crisis’. Chapter I provides a theoretical outline, discussing the academic approach to Men’s Studies, before addressing the specific issue of the representation of gender within the crime fiction genre. Chapters II, III and IV focus on a close reading of the texts of Pelecanos, Mankell and Rankin, respectively.
2010-06-22T00:00:00ZMassey, SusanThis thesis examines the representation of masculinity in the work of three contemporary male crime writers – George Pelecanos, Henning Mankell and Ian Rankin. It considers whether or not the feminist movement, and the resultant deconstruction of gendered identity, has had an impact on the work of male authors. As the topic of masculinity becomes increasingly visible both within sociological discourse and popular culture, have male writers sought to critically engage with their own gender roles or are they more concerned with propagating hegemonic norms? Crime fiction has a history of accommodating revisionist, feminist projects but is there similar space in the genre for male writers to create viable, non-phallic detective heroes?
By focusing on writers of three different nationalities – Pelecanos is American, Mankell is Swedish and Rankin is from the UK – the thesis examines the interaction between masculinity and national identity, and compares the extent to which American, Swedish and British masculinity can be viewed as being ‘in crisis’. Chapter I provides a theoretical outline, discussing the academic approach to Men’s Studies, before addressing the specific issue of the representation of gender within the crime fiction genre. Chapters II, III and IV focus on a close reading of the texts of Pelecanos, Mankell and Rankin, respectively.John Milton's use of logic in 'Paradise lost'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/850
The thesis pioneers a new methodology for the analysis of early modern literature: it embarks on a stylistic appreciation of Paradise Lost using early modern methods of interpretation and comprehension, specifically logic. In doing so it engages in the contest between historicist and stylistic criticism, providing a new methodology by which these two approaches are united to perform historically appropriate stylistic analysis of literary texts. Logic formed the bedrock of all early modern intellectual operations, including the literary, and it was the art used for all forms of analysis and interpretation. Yet in modern studies, logic has suffered from its own interdisciplinary dexterity: it is comparatively seldom studied, and when examined this tends to be in connection within a specific field of interest. As such there is a lack of a comprehensive developmental understanding of this subject in line with its original pragmatic purposes. This thesis addresses this quandary by examining a wide range of texts from the period to produce a syncretic appreciation of this art, similar to that acquired by early modern students. Having extrapolated the principles of early modern logic the second half of the thesis applies these in a practical way to analyse Milton’s style in Paradise Lost, reaching a new appreciation of the poem in accordance with the logical precepts that enabled its original production. The overarching aim of the thesis is to produce an innovative methodology enabling historically appropriate stylistic analysis of early modern texts, uniting the customarily disparate approaches of historicist and stylistic criticism in a literal and pragmatic way to open the possibility for future application of this methodology to other early modern literary texts.
2009-01-01T00:00:00ZWilson, Emma AnnetteThe thesis pioneers a new methodology for the analysis of early modern literature: it embarks on a stylistic appreciation of Paradise Lost using early modern methods of interpretation and comprehension, specifically logic. In doing so it engages in the contest between historicist and stylistic criticism, providing a new methodology by which these two approaches are united to perform historically appropriate stylistic analysis of literary texts. Logic formed the bedrock of all early modern intellectual operations, including the literary, and it was the art used for all forms of analysis and interpretation. Yet in modern studies, logic has suffered from its own interdisciplinary dexterity: it is comparatively seldom studied, and when examined this tends to be in connection within a specific field of interest. As such there is a lack of a comprehensive developmental understanding of this subject in line with its original pragmatic purposes. This thesis addresses this quandary by examining a wide range of texts from the period to produce a syncretic appreciation of this art, similar to that acquired by early modern students. Having extrapolated the principles of early modern logic the second half of the thesis applies these in a practical way to analyse Milton’s style in Paradise Lost, reaching a new appreciation of the poem in accordance with the logical precepts that enabled its original production. The overarching aim of the thesis is to produce an innovative methodology enabling historically appropriate stylistic analysis of early modern texts, uniting the customarily disparate approaches of historicist and stylistic criticism in a literal and pragmatic way to open the possibility for future application of this methodology to other early modern literary texts.The Elizabethan Theatre of Cruelty and its doublehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/836
This thesis is an examination of the theoretical concepts of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) and their relation to the Elizabethan theatre. I propose that the dramas of the age of Shakespeare and the environment in which they were produced should be seen as an integral part of the Theatre of Cruelty and essential to its very understanding. The development of the English Renaissance public theatre was at the mercy of periods of outbreaks and abatements of plague, a powerful force that Artaud considers to be the double of the theatre. The claim for regeneration as an outcome of the plague, a phenomenon causing intense destruction, is very specific to Artaud. The cruel and violent images associated with the plague also feature in the theatre, as do its destructive and regenerative powers. The plague and its surrounding atmosphere contain both the grotesque and sublime elements of life Artaud wished to capture in his theatre. His theory of cruelty is part of a larger investigation into the connection between spectacle, violence, and sacrifice explored by Mikhail Bakhtin, René Girard, and Georges Bataille.
2009-06-23T00:00:00ZDi Ponio, Amanda NinaThis thesis is an examination of the theoretical concepts of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) and their relation to the Elizabethan theatre. I propose that the dramas of the age of Shakespeare and the environment in which they were produced should be seen as an integral part of the Theatre of Cruelty and essential to its very understanding. The development of the English Renaissance public theatre was at the mercy of periods of outbreaks and abatements of plague, a powerful force that Artaud considers to be the double of the theatre. The claim for regeneration as an outcome of the plague, a phenomenon causing intense destruction, is very specific to Artaud. The cruel and violent images associated with the plague also feature in the theatre, as do its destructive and regenerative powers. The plague and its surrounding atmosphere contain both the grotesque and sublime elements of life Artaud wished to capture in his theatre. His theory of cruelty is part of a larger investigation into the connection between spectacle, violence, and sacrifice explored by Mikhail Bakhtin, René Girard, and Georges Bataille.Dorothy Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge : the poetics of relationshiphttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/787
My thesis studies Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth to redress the unjust neglect of Hartley’s work, and to reach a more positive understanding of Dorothy’s conflicted literary relationship with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I provide a complete reassessment of the often narrowly read prose and poetry of these two critically marginalized figures, and also investigate the relationships that affected their lives, literary self-constructions, and reception; in this way, I restore a more accurate account of Hartley and Dorothy as independent and original writers, and also highlight both the inhibiting and cathartic affects of writing from within a familial literary context.
My analysis of the writings of Hartley and Dorothy and the dialogues in which they engage with the works of STC and William, argues that both Hartley and Dorothy developed a strong relational poetics in their endeavour to demarcate their independent subjectivities. Furthermore, through a survey of the significance of the sibling bond – literal and figurative – in the texts and lives of all these writers, I demonstrate a theory of influence which recognizes lateral, rather than paternal, kinship as the most influential relationship. I thus conclude that authorial identity is not fundamentally predetermined by, and dependent on, gender or literary inheritance, but is more significantly governed by domestic environment, familial readership, and immediate kinship.
My thesis challenges the long-standing misconceptions that Hartley was unable to achieve a strong poetic identity in STC’s shadow, and that Dorothy’s independent authorial endeavour was primarily thwarted by gender. To replace these misreadings, I foreground the successful literary independence of both writers: my approach reinstates Hartley Coleridge’s literary standing as a major poet who bridged Romanticism and Victorian literature, and promotes Dorothy Wordsworth as one of the finest descriptive writers of nature and relationship.
2009-11-30T00:00:00ZHealey, Nicola, 1981-My thesis studies Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth to redress the unjust neglect of Hartley’s work, and to reach a more positive understanding of Dorothy’s conflicted literary relationship with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I provide a complete reassessment of the often narrowly read prose and poetry of these two critically marginalized figures, and also investigate the relationships that affected their lives, literary self-constructions, and reception; in this way, I restore a more accurate account of Hartley and Dorothy as independent and original writers, and also highlight both the inhibiting and cathartic affects of writing from within a familial literary context.
My analysis of the writings of Hartley and Dorothy and the dialogues in which they engage with the works of STC and William, argues that both Hartley and Dorothy developed a strong relational poetics in their endeavour to demarcate their independent subjectivities. Furthermore, through a survey of the significance of the sibling bond – literal and figurative – in the texts and lives of all these writers, I demonstrate a theory of influence which recognizes lateral, rather than paternal, kinship as the most influential relationship. I thus conclude that authorial identity is not fundamentally predetermined by, and dependent on, gender or literary inheritance, but is more significantly governed by domestic environment, familial readership, and immediate kinship.
My thesis challenges the long-standing misconceptions that Hartley was unable to achieve a strong poetic identity in STC’s shadow, and that Dorothy’s independent authorial endeavour was primarily thwarted by gender. To replace these misreadings, I foreground the successful literary independence of both writers: my approach reinstates Hartley Coleridge’s literary standing as a major poet who bridged Romanticism and Victorian literature, and promotes Dorothy Wordsworth as one of the finest descriptive writers of nature and relationship.Foreign and native on the English stage, 1588-1611 : metaphor and national identityhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/786
This thesis explores the role of metaphor in the construction of early modern English national identity in the dramatic writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The metaphorical associations of character names and their imagined native or foreign stage settings helped model to English audiences and readers not only their own national community, but also ways in which the representation of collective ‘Englishness’ might involve self-estrangement.
The main body of the thesis comprises three case studies: Cleopatra, Kent and Christendom. These topographies -- personal, local and regional -- illustrate how metaphorical complexes shifted against both an evolving body of literary texts and under pressure from changing historical contexts, variously defining individual selves against the collective political nation. Each section explores inter-textual connections between theatrical metaphors and contemporary English non-dramatic texts, placing these within a wider European context, and ends by discussing a relevant play by Shakespeare (Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear and Cymbeline respectively).
The first case study examines ways in which Cleopatra was used as a metaphor to define individual against collective identity. I shall suggest that such Oriental self-alienation might be seen as enabling; Cleopatran identities allow English writers, readers and audiences to imagine aesthetic alternatives to public identities. The second case study looks at the idea of Kent as an emblematic identity that both preserved local peculiarity while providing a metaphor for collective English identity. Writers use Kentish ambiguity to explore discontinuities and uncertainties within the emerging political nation. The third case study examines the idea of Christendom, used as an imaginary geography to bridge the gap between individual and political identities. I suggest that attempts to map Christendom to literal territorial coordinates might be resisted in ways that produced, again, alternative, non-national literary identities.
2009-06-23T00:00:00ZPettegree, Jane K.This thesis explores the role of metaphor in the construction of early modern English national identity in the dramatic writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The metaphorical associations of character names and their imagined native or foreign stage settings helped model to English audiences and readers not only their own national community, but also ways in which the representation of collective ‘Englishness’ might involve self-estrangement.
The main body of the thesis comprises three case studies: Cleopatra, Kent and Christendom. These topographies -- personal, local and regional -- illustrate how metaphorical complexes shifted against both an evolving body of literary texts and under pressure from changing historical contexts, variously defining individual selves against the collective political nation. Each section explores inter-textual connections between theatrical metaphors and contemporary English non-dramatic texts, placing these within a wider European context, and ends by discussing a relevant play by Shakespeare (Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear and Cymbeline respectively).
The first case study examines ways in which Cleopatra was used as a metaphor to define individual against collective identity. I shall suggest that such Oriental self-alienation might be seen as enabling; Cleopatran identities allow English writers, readers and audiences to imagine aesthetic alternatives to public identities. The second case study looks at the idea of Kent as an emblematic identity that both preserved local peculiarity while providing a metaphor for collective English identity. Writers use Kentish ambiguity to explore discontinuities and uncertainties within the emerging political nation. The third case study examines the idea of Christendom, used as an imaginary geography to bridge the gap between individual and political identities. I suggest that attempts to map Christendom to literal territorial coordinates might be resisted in ways that produced, again, alternative, non-national literary identities.Not drowning but waving : the American Junior Year abroadhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/750
“Not Drowning but Waving: The American Junior Year Abroad” explores and describes study abroad amongst college students while also showing the historical roots of study abroad. This thesis seeks to understand the history and current issues in study abroad while also giving a literary description of the experiences, personal changes, and development of insight in the students who decide to study abroad.
The Introduction serves both as the introduction to my project as well as an overview of the history and current issues within study abroad. It is divided into three main parts. The first section discusses the impetus for the project, the research methodology, relevant literature, and the genre of creative nonfiction. The second section covers the history of American travel and study abroad, as well as the work of the Fulbright Program. The third section is a short survey of contemporary trends within study abroad, and addresses issues of gender, race, location, and student behavior while abroad.
The creative portion of this thesis describes the study abroad students’ stories, experiences, and insights during and after a semester in Europe. The first three chapters of this section—“Leaving”, “Destinations” and “Guardians at the Gate”—describe some of the initial experiences during a semester abroad. Chapter one looks at the process of traveling to a new country and adapting to new cultural norms. Chapter two describes the study abroad destinations where I did my primary research for this project. Chapter three explores some logistical issues in study abroad, namely academics, finances, and housing.
Chapter four explores the challenges students face after the initial excitement of study abroad wears off, and looks at the issues of student responsibility, danger, harassment, and alcohol abuse. Chapter five describes student travel habits, which is one of the most popular elements of study abroad but also one of the more problematic. Chapter six looks at the challenge of re-entry to North America for study abroad students, and chapter seven provides a conclusion to the piece.
2009-06-23T00:00:00ZKarnehm, Katrina A.“Not Drowning but Waving: The American Junior Year Abroad” explores and describes study abroad amongst college students while also showing the historical roots of study abroad. This thesis seeks to understand the history and current issues in study abroad while also giving a literary description of the experiences, personal changes, and development of insight in the students who decide to study abroad.
The Introduction serves both as the introduction to my project as well as an overview of the history and current issues within study abroad. It is divided into three main parts. The first section discusses the impetus for the project, the research methodology, relevant literature, and the genre of creative nonfiction. The second section covers the history of American travel and study abroad, as well as the work of the Fulbright Program. The third section is a short survey of contemporary trends within study abroad, and addresses issues of gender, race, location, and student behavior while abroad.
The creative portion of this thesis describes the study abroad students’ stories, experiences, and insights during and after a semester in Europe. The first three chapters of this section—“Leaving”, “Destinations” and “Guardians at the Gate”—describe some of the initial experiences during a semester abroad. Chapter one looks at the process of traveling to a new country and adapting to new cultural norms. Chapter two describes the study abroad destinations where I did my primary research for this project. Chapter three explores some logistical issues in study abroad, namely academics, finances, and housing.
Chapter four explores the challenges students face after the initial excitement of study abroad wears off, and looks at the issues of student responsibility, danger, harassment, and alcohol abuse. Chapter five describes student travel habits, which is one of the most popular elements of study abroad but also one of the more problematic. Chapter six looks at the challenge of re-entry to North America for study abroad students, and chapter seven provides a conclusion to the piece.Paradoxical solitude in the life, letters, and poetry of John Keats, 1814-1818http://hdl.handle.net/10023/749
This thesis proposes two distinct but connected ideas: that John Keats’s idiom of friendship was haunted by “sequestered” longings and that he ultimately valued specific, one-on-one partnerships as a basis for his poetical character. The Introduction places the thesis within its critical context and outlines “paradoxical solitude,” a concept the poet expressed by joining a “kindred spirit” in a wilderness retreat in “O, Solitude.”
I begin by examining the evolving role of solitude in Keats’s literary predecessors (Chapter I). I then trace the development of ideas of creativity and solitude from his 1814-1815 verse, including his first association with a coterie and the influence of Wordsworth (Chapter II). Building on these findings, I explore the poet’s introduction to the Hunt circle in 1816, assessing his relationships with its members and their overstated roles in the production of Poems (Chapter III). I then discuss how Keats regarded the composition of Endymion in 1817 as a poetic “test,” specifically tailored to reinforce his identity as a solitary poet (Chapter IV).
I contend that Keats engaged in a dialogue of independence with Reynolds, adapted the theories of Hazlitt, and restlessly travelled throughout England as a means of rejecting the highly social periods of 1818 (Chapter V). I then consider the creative gains of his northern expedition with Brown in the summer of 1818. I argue that Keats exaggerated his development into a “post-Wordsworthian” poet, positioning himself outside both the coterie’s sphere and the reach of Blackwood’s criticism, and inspiring the theme of Hyperion (Chapter VI).
In closing, I analyze Keats’s advice to Shelley to be a selfish creator of his poetic identity. Only through paradoxical solitude, I argue, was Keats able to construct the poetic identity that led him to compose the poems on which his fame rests in the 1820 volume.
2009-11-30T00:00:00ZTheobald, JohnThis thesis proposes two distinct but connected ideas: that John Keats’s idiom of friendship was haunted by “sequestered” longings and that he ultimately valued specific, one-on-one partnerships as a basis for his poetical character. The Introduction places the thesis within its critical context and outlines “paradoxical solitude,” a concept the poet expressed by joining a “kindred spirit” in a wilderness retreat in “O, Solitude.”
I begin by examining the evolving role of solitude in Keats’s literary predecessors (Chapter I). I then trace the development of ideas of creativity and solitude from his 1814-1815 verse, including his first association with a coterie and the influence of Wordsworth (Chapter II). Building on these findings, I explore the poet’s introduction to the Hunt circle in 1816, assessing his relationships with its members and their overstated roles in the production of Poems (Chapter III). I then discuss how Keats regarded the composition of Endymion in 1817 as a poetic “test,” specifically tailored to reinforce his identity as a solitary poet (Chapter IV).
I contend that Keats engaged in a dialogue of independence with Reynolds, adapted the theories of Hazlitt, and restlessly travelled throughout England as a means of rejecting the highly social periods of 1818 (Chapter V). I then consider the creative gains of his northern expedition with Brown in the summer of 1818. I argue that Keats exaggerated his development into a “post-Wordsworthian” poet, positioning himself outside both the coterie’s sphere and the reach of Blackwood’s criticism, and inspiring the theme of Hyperion (Chapter VI).
In closing, I analyze Keats’s advice to Shelley to be a selfish creator of his poetic identity. Only through paradoxical solitude, I argue, was Keats able to construct the poetic identity that led him to compose the poems on which his fame rests in the 1820 volume.Liturgy translated : languages of nature, man and God in Smart’s Jubilate agnohttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/732
This thesis explores Christopher Smart’s search for an ideal language of religious expression and its presentation in Jubilate Agno. The concept of translation is utilised as an interpretative tool to explore the poet’s understanding and manipulation of languages. My investigation of Smart’s translation in Jubilate Agno is divided into three categories: the language used to describe nature, the language of man and the language used to describe God. Chapter One explores Smart’s poetic emphasis on reading the world correctly. The analysis concentrates on four themes: the inability to express the divine and the risk of vanity in science in the early poems, anti-Newtonianism, Smart’s rejection of scientific language, and the poet’s catalogic and categorical impulses in Jubilate Agno. Chapter Two is concerned with human communication through reading, writing and speaking. I investigate how the religious poet aims to create a new kind of universal language as he attempts to dissolve the dichotomy between divine and human expression. Chapter 3 explores the poem’s “extra-lingual” modes of communication and Smart’s interest in other ways of reading, interpreting and communicating to achieve sublime, divine language through depictions of artistic beauty. The thesis concludes by comparing Smart’s poem to other liturgical forms.
2009-06-23T00:00:00ZPowell, RosalindThis thesis explores Christopher Smart’s search for an ideal language of religious expression and its presentation in Jubilate Agno. The concept of translation is utilised as an interpretative tool to explore the poet’s understanding and manipulation of languages. My investigation of Smart’s translation in Jubilate Agno is divided into three categories: the language used to describe nature, the language of man and the language used to describe God. Chapter One explores Smart’s poetic emphasis on reading the world correctly. The analysis concentrates on four themes: the inability to express the divine and the risk of vanity in science in the early poems, anti-Newtonianism, Smart’s rejection of scientific language, and the poet’s catalogic and categorical impulses in Jubilate Agno. Chapter Two is concerned with human communication through reading, writing and speaking. I investigate how the religious poet aims to create a new kind of universal language as he attempts to dissolve the dichotomy between divine and human expression. Chapter 3 explores the poem’s “extra-lingual” modes of communication and Smart’s interest in other ways of reading, interpreting and communicating to achieve sublime, divine language through depictions of artistic beauty. The thesis concludes by comparing Smart’s poem to other liturgical forms.The many selves of Simic: an interdisciplinary approach to the poetry of Charles Simic ; Tannic acid sweetheart : poemshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/711
Part i of the thesis, The Many Selves of Simic: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Poetry of Charles Simic, examines various “selves” out of which Charles Simic’s poetry grows: Simic the American poet, Simic the visual artist, Simic the agnostic theologian, and Simic the humorist. By drawing on scholarship from a variety of disciplines, the thesis accounts for numerous contexts and tensions within which Simic’s poetry has developed.
Chapter One explores what it means to refer to Simic as an American poet. In the process, it analyzes the meaningfulness of the construct “American poetry” and identifies several of its key features alongside Simic’s own understanding of this tradition. Finally, it delineates the way Simic has grafted himself into the tradition of American poetry.
Chapter Two analyzes the centrality of visual art to the way Simic construes the figurative space created by a poem. It connects Simic’s poetry to the work of the American collage and shadow box artist Joseph Cornell and argues that Simic approaches poems as distinctly physical entities that possess spatial extension. Lastly, it compares Simic’s spatial poetics to those of the American poet Charles Olson.
Chapter Three analyzes Simic’s fascination with Christian mysticism alongside his perpetual agnosticism. It argues that Simic’s poetic via negativa incorporates aspects of both medieval and deconstructionist postmodern forms of negation. It then compares Simic’s mysticism with that of Charles Wright and Mark Strand.
Chapter Four argues that Simic’s “desire for irreverence” provides the center of gravity that holds together his various “selves.” The chapter delineates the various emotional registers of Simic’s work and analyzes them alongside theories of humor. Finally, it considers the various comedic influences on the formal strategies of Simic’s work.
Part ii of the thesis, Tannic Acid Sweetheart, consists of my own poems.
2009-01-01T00:00:00ZMcAbee, DonovanPart i of the thesis, The Many Selves of Simic: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Poetry of Charles Simic, examines various “selves” out of which Charles Simic’s poetry grows: Simic the American poet, Simic the visual artist, Simic the agnostic theologian, and Simic the humorist. By drawing on scholarship from a variety of disciplines, the thesis accounts for numerous contexts and tensions within which Simic’s poetry has developed.
Chapter One explores what it means to refer to Simic as an American poet. In the process, it analyzes the meaningfulness of the construct “American poetry” and identifies several of its key features alongside Simic’s own understanding of this tradition. Finally, it delineates the way Simic has grafted himself into the tradition of American poetry.
Chapter Two analyzes the centrality of visual art to the way Simic construes the figurative space created by a poem. It connects Simic’s poetry to the work of the American collage and shadow box artist Joseph Cornell and argues that Simic approaches poems as distinctly physical entities that possess spatial extension. Lastly, it compares Simic’s spatial poetics to those of the American poet Charles Olson.
Chapter Three analyzes Simic’s fascination with Christian mysticism alongside his perpetual agnosticism. It argues that Simic’s poetic via negativa incorporates aspects of both medieval and deconstructionist postmodern forms of negation. It then compares Simic’s mysticism with that of Charles Wright and Mark Strand.
Chapter Four argues that Simic’s “desire for irreverence” provides the center of gravity that holds together his various “selves.” The chapter delineates the various emotional registers of Simic’s work and analyzes them alongside theories of humor. Finally, it considers the various comedic influences on the formal strategies of Simic’s work.
Part ii of the thesis, Tannic Acid Sweetheart, consists of my own poems.Crime fiction and the publishing markethttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/710
The thesis is mainly a substantial part of a crime novel, the title of which is 6, Vermillion Crescent. In that novel, a girl of 14 is murdered by her foster brother. On his release from prison, the former foster child goes in search of his victim’s mother with the intention of murdering her for betraying and abandoning him.
The idea for the novel was sparked by events that occurred over 18 years ago, and coincided with the publication of my first novel. There have been a number of changes within the publishing industry since then, and in the critical piece accompanying the novel extract, I explain the most significant of these changes. The critical piece includes a detailed synopsis of 6, Vermillion Crescent.
2008-01-01T00:00:00ZWallis Martin, JuliaThe thesis is mainly a substantial part of a crime novel, the title of which is 6, Vermillion Crescent. In that novel, a girl of 14 is murdered by her foster brother. On his release from prison, the former foster child goes in search of his victim’s mother with the intention of murdering her for betraying and abandoning him.
The idea for the novel was sparked by events that occurred over 18 years ago, and coincided with the publication of my first novel. There have been a number of changes within the publishing industry since then, and in the critical piece accompanying the novel extract, I explain the most significant of these changes. The critical piece includes a detailed synopsis of 6, Vermillion Crescent."One can emend a mutilated text": Auden's The Orators and the Old English Exeter Bookhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/647
This article argues that Book I of Auden's 1931 work 'The Orators' does not merely allude to poems in the Old English Exeter Book as source material, but that it participates in a medievalist model of textual production. Auden's poem performs acts analogous to those such as 'compliatio' and 'ordinatio', and deliberately misrepresents and distorts its source texts even as it alludes to them in order to make a point about the transmission and corruption of canonical texts. In addition, some source material is identified here for the first time.
2002-01-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article argues that Book I of Auden's 1931 work 'The Orators' does not merely allude to poems in the Old English Exeter Book as source material, but that it participates in a medievalist model of textual production. Auden's poem performs acts analogous to those such as 'compliatio' and 'ordinatio', and deliberately misrepresents and distorts its source texts even as it alludes to them in order to make a point about the transmission and corruption of canonical texts. In addition, some source material is identified here for the first time."One a Bird Bore Off": Anglo-Saxon and the elegiac in The Cantos'http://hdl.handle.net/10023/646
This article provides an explanation and context for Pound's quotation from the Old English poem 'The Wanderer' at the start of 'Canto 27' and discusses the previously unacknowledged stylistic and rhythmical debts to Old English in 'Canto 28'. The article argues that Pound sees this 'saxonist' style specifically as elegiac and deploys it accordingly.
2001-01-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article provides an explanation and context for Pound's quotation from the Old English poem 'The Wanderer' at the start of 'Canto 27' and discusses the previously unacknowledged stylistic and rhythmical debts to Old English in 'Canto 28'. The article argues that Pound sees this 'saxonist' style specifically as elegiac and deploys it accordingly.Knight or Wight in Keats's 'La Bella Dame'?: An Ancient Ditty Reconsideredhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/645
This article re-examines the various processes of textual transmission for Keats's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci', which have resulted in two 'competing' texts of the poem. It argues that a medieval model of textual production offers a strategy for dealing with this circumstance, and that, approached in this way, there is no need to resolve the textual 'problem' that the poem poses.
2005-01-01T00:00:00ZJones, ChrisThis article re-examines the various processes of textual transmission for Keats's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci', which have resulted in two 'competing' texts of the poem. It argues that a medieval model of textual production offers a strategy for dealing with this circumstance, and that, approached in this way, there is no need to resolve the textual 'problem' that the poem poses.Mulcaster's boys : Spenser, Andrewes, Kydhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/602
Although it is generally acknowledged that an Elizabethan grammar school education was intensely oral and aural, few studies have approached the literature of its pupils principally in light of such an understanding. There may be good reason for this paucity, since the reading of textual remains in the hopes of reconstituting sound and movement—particularly in non-dramatic literature—will always, in the end, be confronted by an inaudible and static text. Yet for the Elizabethan schoolboy, composition and performance were inseparable, whether of an epistle, a theme, or a translation of Latin poetry. The purpose of this project is firstly to describe the conditions which led to and ingrained that inseparability, and then offer some readings of the poetry, oratory, and drama of those whose voices and pens were trained in the grammar school, here Merchant Taylors’ School in 1560s London. Edmund Spenser, Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Kyd all attended Merchant Taylors’ in this period, and their poetry, sermons, and drama, respectively, are treated in the following discussion. It is argued that their texts reflect the same preoccupation with pronuntiatio et actio, or rhetorical delivery, held by their boyhood schoolmaster, Richard Mulcaster. I suggest that delivery provides a unique way of assessing literature in the context of an oral/aural education, largely because its classical and Renaissance rules invariably stipulate that vocal and gestural modulations must follow the emotional and intentional sense of words rather than their literal meanings. Delivery is thus shown to exist at the nexus of orality and literacy, performance and text, wholly absorbed with the concerns of speech, but distinct from language as well. In imagining the physicality of this middle ground within their narratives, it is proposed that Mulcaster’s students recalled an education very often spent stirring the emotions with and for their bodily expression.
2008-07-15T00:00:00ZWesley, JohnAlthough it is generally acknowledged that an Elizabethan grammar school education was intensely oral and aural, few studies have approached the literature of its pupils principally in light of such an understanding. There may be good reason for this paucity, since the reading of textual remains in the hopes of reconstituting sound and movement—particularly in non-dramatic literature—will always, in the end, be confronted by an inaudible and static text. Yet for the Elizabethan schoolboy, composition and performance were inseparable, whether of an epistle, a theme, or a translation of Latin poetry. The purpose of this project is firstly to describe the conditions which led to and ingrained that inseparability, and then offer some readings of the poetry, oratory, and drama of those whose voices and pens were trained in the grammar school, here Merchant Taylors’ School in 1560s London. Edmund Spenser, Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Kyd all attended Merchant Taylors’ in this period, and their poetry, sermons, and drama, respectively, are treated in the following discussion. It is argued that their texts reflect the same preoccupation with pronuntiatio et actio, or rhetorical delivery, held by their boyhood schoolmaster, Richard Mulcaster. I suggest that delivery provides a unique way of assessing literature in the context of an oral/aural education, largely because its classical and Renaissance rules invariably stipulate that vocal and gestural modulations must follow the emotional and intentional sense of words rather than their literal meanings. Delivery is thus shown to exist at the nexus of orality and literacy, performance and text, wholly absorbed with the concerns of speech, but distinct from language as well. In imagining the physicality of this middle ground within their narratives, it is proposed that Mulcaster’s students recalled an education very often spent stirring the emotions with and for their bodily expression.Translation as creative retelling : constituents, patterning and shift in Gavin Douglas' Eneadoshttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/554
The Thesis analyses and evaluates how Gavin Douglas (Eneados, 1513) has refocused Virgil's Aeneid, principally by giving more emphasis to the serial particularity inherent in the story, loosening the narrative structure and involving the reader in its retelling.
Chapter I pieces together (from the evidence not merely of what Douglas explicitly says, but of what his words imply) what for him a "text" in general is, and what accordingly it means for a translator or a reader to be engaged with it. This sets the scene for what follows.
The next four Chapters look in turn at how he re-expresses important (metaphysical) characteristics of the story. In Chapter II his handling of time is discussed, and compared with Virgil's: the Chapter sets out in detail how Douglas consistently refocuses temporal predicates, foregrounding their disjunctiveness and making them differently felt. In Chapter III spatial position and distance are analysed, and Douglas' way of dealing with space is found to display parallels with his treatment of time: networks are loosened and nodal points are accentuated. In Chapter IV the way in which he presents individuals is compared with Virgil's, and a similar repatterning and shift reveals itself: Douglas provides his persons with firmer boundaries. Chapter V deals with fate, where Douglas encounters special difficulties but maintains his characteristic way of handling the story. The aim of these four Chapters is to characterise formally how Douglas concretises and vivifies the tale of Aeneas, engaging his readers throughout in the retelling.
Finally, Chapter VI looks at certain general principles of translation theory (notably connected with the ideas of faithfulness and accuracy) and argues for a way in which Douglas' translation can be fairly experienced by the reader and fairly evaluated as a lively retelling which (albeit distinctive) is fundamentally faithful to Virgil.
2008-11-21T00:00:00ZKendal, GordonThe Thesis analyses and evaluates how Gavin Douglas (Eneados, 1513) has refocused Virgil's Aeneid, principally by giving more emphasis to the serial particularity inherent in the story, loosening the narrative structure and involving the reader in its retelling.
Chapter I pieces together (from the evidence not merely of what Douglas explicitly says, but of what his words imply) what for him a "text" in general is, and what accordingly it means for a translator or a reader to be engaged with it. This sets the scene for what follows.
The next four Chapters look in turn at how he re-expresses important (metaphysical) characteristics of the story. In Chapter II his handling of time is discussed, and compared with Virgil's: the Chapter sets out in detail how Douglas consistently refocuses temporal predicates, foregrounding their disjunctiveness and making them differently felt. In Chapter III spatial position and distance are analysed, and Douglas' way of dealing with space is found to display parallels with his treatment of time: networks are loosened and nodal points are accentuated. In Chapter IV the way in which he presents individuals is compared with Virgil's, and a similar repatterning and shift reveals itself: Douglas provides his persons with firmer boundaries. Chapter V deals with fate, where Douglas encounters special difficulties but maintains his characteristic way of handling the story. The aim of these four Chapters is to characterise formally how Douglas concretises and vivifies the tale of Aeneas, engaging his readers throughout in the retelling.
Finally, Chapter VI looks at certain general principles of translation theory (notably connected with the ideas of faithfulness and accuracy) and argues for a way in which Douglas' translation can be fairly experienced by the reader and fairly evaluated as a lively retelling which (albeit distinctive) is fundamentally faithful to Virgil.Immediate passage : the narrative of Joel H. Brown, with a critical essay on form and style in the sea voyage narrativehttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/550
'Immediate Passage: The Narrative of Joel H. Brown' is an original work of fiction. The protagonist and narrator, Joel Brown, is preparing to set sail for a singlehanded
circumnavigation. As he readies his boat and counts down the days until his departure, he
reflects on his previous experience at sea, what he expects to see out there, and why he is even going in the first place. The story ends with his departure. It is set in the present day.
The novel is supported by an analysis of the choices of form and style in first person
sea voyage narratives, showing general trends and authorial choices in the areas of veracity, structure, point of view, voice, tense, direct speech, and the use of maritime language. A glossary of maritime words is provided as an appendix.
2008-06-26T00:00:00ZKing, Richard Jay'Immediate Passage: The Narrative of Joel H. Brown' is an original work of fiction. The protagonist and narrator, Joel Brown, is preparing to set sail for a singlehanded
circumnavigation. As he readies his boat and counts down the days until his departure, he
reflects on his previous experience at sea, what he expects to see out there, and why he is even going in the first place. The story ends with his departure. It is set in the present day.
The novel is supported by an analysis of the choices of form and style in first person
sea voyage narratives, showing general trends and authorial choices in the areas of veracity, structure, point of view, voice, tense, direct speech, and the use of maritime language. A glossary of maritime words is provided as an appendix.Virginia Woolf and the dramatic imaginationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/510
This PhD thesis analyses the influence of drama, contemporary to Virginia Woolf, on Woolf’s fiction and life writing. Plays by a range of dramatists from Ibsen to Eliot affected Woolf as both an individual and writer, yet little research has been done to link the late nineteenth/ early twentieth-century theatre with her fictional works or her concept of everyday life as expressed in the diaries, letters and memoir papers. An enthusiastic reader, playwright, theatregoer, and friend of playwrights, critics, actors, set designers and theatre owners, Woolf was naturally stimulated by exposure to this creative force and this research analyses its significance. The thesis begins by examining the non-fiction as a dramatization of her lived reality (see Chapter 1) which reached its apotheosis in the private plays (including Woolf’s Freshwater) that were performed in Bloomsbury (see Chapter 4). The discussion, focused in Chapters 2 and 3, addresses Woolf’s fictional output and explores the effect of the most influential plays and playwrights on Woolf’s novels and the concept of theatre as a metaphor within the texts’ imagery, style and structure.
2008-06-26T00:00:00ZWright, Elizabeth HelenaThis PhD thesis analyses the influence of drama, contemporary to Virginia Woolf, on Woolf’s fiction and life writing. Plays by a range of dramatists from Ibsen to Eliot affected Woolf as both an individual and writer, yet little research has been done to link the late nineteenth/ early twentieth-century theatre with her fictional works or her concept of everyday life as expressed in the diaries, letters and memoir papers. An enthusiastic reader, playwright, theatregoer, and friend of playwrights, critics, actors, set designers and theatre owners, Woolf was naturally stimulated by exposure to this creative force and this research analyses its significance. The thesis begins by examining the non-fiction as a dramatization of her lived reality (see Chapter 1) which reached its apotheosis in the private plays (including Woolf’s Freshwater) that were performed in Bloomsbury (see Chapter 4). The discussion, focused in Chapters 2 and 3, addresses Woolf’s fictional output and explores the effect of the most influential plays and playwrights on Woolf’s novels and the concept of theatre as a metaphor within the texts’ imagery, style and structure.Infernal imagery in Anglo-Saxon chartershttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/498
This doctoral dissertation analyses depictions of hell in sanctions, i.e. threats of punishments in Anglo-Saxon charters. I am arguing that an innovative use of sanctions as pastoral and ideological instruments effected the peak of infernal imagery in the sanctions of tenth-century royal diplomas. Belonging to the genre of ritual curses, Anglo-Saxon sanctions contain the three standard ecclesiastical curses (excommunication, anathema and damnation). It cannot be established if other requirements of ritual cursing (authoritative personnel, setting and gestures) were fulfilled. A lack of evidence, together with indications of more secular punishments, suggests that sanctions were not used as legal instruments. Their pastoral function is proposed by frightening depictions of hell and the devil, as fear is an important means of achieving salvation in biblical, homiletic and theological writings available or produced in Anglo-Saxon England. The use of the infernal motifs of Hell as a Kitchen, Satan as the Mouth of Hell and winged demons in sanctions are discussed in detail. Sanctions frequently contain the overtly didactic and pastoral device of the exemplum. Notorious sinners believed to be damned in hell (e.g. Judas) are presented as negative exempla in sanctions to deter people from transgressing against charters. The repeated use of terms from classical mythology for depicting hell in Anglo-Saxon sanctions appears to correlate with the preference for hermeneutic Latin by tenth-century monastic reformers. The reasons for employing classical mythological terminology seem to agree with those suggested for the use of hermeneutic Latin (intellectual snobbery and raising the stylistic register), and glossaries constitute the main source of both types of Latinity. The sanctions of the Refoundation Charter of New Minster, Winchester, which is known to display the ‘ruler theology’ propagated by the monastic reform, are examined in their textual contexts with regard to the observations made in the earlier parts of this dissertation.
2008-06-01T00:00:00ZHofmann, PetraThis doctoral dissertation analyses depictions of hell in sanctions, i.e. threats of punishments in Anglo-Saxon charters. I am arguing that an innovative use of sanctions as pastoral and ideological instruments effected the peak of infernal imagery in the sanctions of tenth-century royal diplomas. Belonging to the genre of ritual curses, Anglo-Saxon sanctions contain the three standard ecclesiastical curses (excommunication, anathema and damnation). It cannot be established if other requirements of ritual cursing (authoritative personnel, setting and gestures) were fulfilled. A lack of evidence, together with indications of more secular punishments, suggests that sanctions were not used as legal instruments. Their pastoral function is proposed by frightening depictions of hell and the devil, as fear is an important means of achieving salvation in biblical, homiletic and theological writings available or produced in Anglo-Saxon England. The use of the infernal motifs of Hell as a Kitchen, Satan as the Mouth of Hell and winged demons in sanctions are discussed in detail. Sanctions frequently contain the overtly didactic and pastoral device of the exemplum. Notorious sinners believed to be damned in hell (e.g. Judas) are presented as negative exempla in sanctions to deter people from transgressing against charters. The repeated use of terms from classical mythology for depicting hell in Anglo-Saxon sanctions appears to correlate with the preference for hermeneutic Latin by tenth-century monastic reformers. The reasons for employing classical mythological terminology seem to agree with those suggested for the use of hermeneutic Latin (intellectual snobbery and raising the stylistic register), and glossaries constitute the main source of both types of Latinity. The sanctions of the Refoundation Charter of New Minster, Winchester, which is known to display the ‘ruler theology’ propagated by the monastic reform, are examined in their textual contexts with regard to the observations made in the earlier parts of this dissertation.K 'N' T and the accompanying critical analysis of creative processhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/484
A jaded salesclerk invents the ideal companion, unaware that a well-constructed character always develops the need and means to influence his own story. Unable to envision herself outside of the tedious K ‘n’ T in rural Wagner, New Hampshire, salesclerk Brett Wilson invents her own adventure in the form of Thom—former Blue Tit road-hand, witty escaped con and imaginary friend.
Though primarily using Thom as a sounding board, Brett also amuses herself by dreaming up his gruelling yet ridiculous flight from the law. All the back-story and attention to detail move Thom from a mental diversion to a mysterious, opinion-charged reality.
Creator and creation quickly find themselves in a comic scuffle—Brett desperate to regain sanity and Thom undermining everyday life until he’s granted self-possession. In the end one of them will have to leave K ‘n’ T.
2008-06-30T00:00:00ZGallant, Deborah AndersonA jaded salesclerk invents the ideal companion, unaware that a well-constructed character always develops the need and means to influence his own story. Unable to envision herself outside of the tedious K ‘n’ T in rural Wagner, New Hampshire, salesclerk Brett Wilson invents her own adventure in the form of Thom—former Blue Tit road-hand, witty escaped con and imaginary friend.
Though primarily using Thom as a sounding board, Brett also amuses herself by dreaming up his gruelling yet ridiculous flight from the law. All the back-story and attention to detail move Thom from a mental diversion to a mysterious, opinion-charged reality.
Creator and creation quickly find themselves in a comic scuffle—Brett desperate to regain sanity and Thom undermining everyday life until he’s granted self-possession. In the end one of them will have to leave K ‘n’ T.The Ophelia versions : representations of a dramatic type, 1600-1633http://hdl.handle.net/10023/478
‘The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type from 1600-1633’ interrogates early modern drama’s use of the Ophelia type, which is defined in reference to Hamlet’s Ophelia and the behavioural patterns she exhibits: abandonment, derangement and suicide.
Chapter one investigates Shakespeare’s Ophelia in Hamlet, finding that Ophelia is strongly identified with the ballad corpus. I argue that the popular ballad medium that Shakespeare imports into the play via Ophelia is a subversive force that contends with and destabilizes the linear trajectory of Hamlet’s revenge tragedy narrative. The alternative space of Ophelia’s ballad narrative is, however, shut down by her suicide which, I argue, is influenced by the models of classical theatre. This ending conspires with the repressive legal and social restrictions placed upon early modern unmarried women and sets up a dangerous precedent by killing off the unassimilated abandoned woman.
Chapter two argues that Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen amplifies Ophelia’s folk and ballad associations in their portrayal of the Jailer’s Daughter. Her comedic marital ending is enabled by a collaborative, communal, folk-cure. The play nevertheless registers a proto-feminist awareness of the peculiar losses suffered by early modern women in marriage and this knowledge deeply troubles the Jailer’s Daughter’s happy ending.
Chapter three explores the role of Lucibella in The Tragedy of Hoffman arguing that the play is a direct response to Hamlet’s treatment of revenge and that Lucibella is caught up in an authorial project of disambiguation which attempts to return the revenge plot to its morality roots. Chapters four and five explore the narratives of Aspatia in The Maid’s Tragedy and Penthea in The Broken Heart, finding in their very conformism to the behaviours prescribed for them, both by the Ophelia type itself and by early modern society in general, a radical protest against the limitations and repressions of those roles.
This thesis is consistently invested in the competing dialectics and authorities of oral and textual mediums in these plays. The Ophelia type, perhaps because of Hamlet’s Ophelia’s identification with the ballad corpus, proves an interesting gauge of each play’s engagement with emergent notions of textual authority in the early modern period.
2008-06-01T00:00:00ZBenson, Fiona‘The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type from 1600-1633’ interrogates early modern drama’s use of the Ophelia type, which is defined in reference to Hamlet’s Ophelia and the behavioural patterns she exhibits: abandonment, derangement and suicide.
Chapter one investigates Shakespeare’s Ophelia in Hamlet, finding that Ophelia is strongly identified with the ballad corpus. I argue that the popular ballad medium that Shakespeare imports into the play via Ophelia is a subversive force that contends with and destabilizes the linear trajectory of Hamlet’s revenge tragedy narrative. The alternative space of Ophelia’s ballad narrative is, however, shut down by her suicide which, I argue, is influenced by the models of classical theatre. This ending conspires with the repressive legal and social restrictions placed upon early modern unmarried women and sets up a dangerous precedent by killing off the unassimilated abandoned woman.
Chapter two argues that Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen amplifies Ophelia’s folk and ballad associations in their portrayal of the Jailer’s Daughter. Her comedic marital ending is enabled by a collaborative, communal, folk-cure. The play nevertheless registers a proto-feminist awareness of the peculiar losses suffered by early modern women in marriage and this knowledge deeply troubles the Jailer’s Daughter’s happy ending.
Chapter three explores the role of Lucibella in The Tragedy of Hoffman arguing that the play is a direct response to Hamlet’s treatment of revenge and that Lucibella is caught up in an authorial project of disambiguation which attempts to return the revenge plot to its morality roots. Chapters four and five explore the narratives of Aspatia in The Maid’s Tragedy and Penthea in The Broken Heart, finding in their very conformism to the behaviours prescribed for them, both by the Ophelia type itself and by early modern society in general, a radical protest against the limitations and repressions of those roles.
This thesis is consistently invested in the competing dialectics and authorities of oral and textual mediums in these plays. The Ophelia type, perhaps because of Hamlet’s Ophelia’s identification with the ballad corpus, proves an interesting gauge of each play’s engagement with emergent notions of textual authority in the early modern period.Wordsworth's Gothic politics : a study of the poetry and prose, 1794-1814http://hdl.handle.net/10023/361
This thesis argues for the deep implication of William Wordsworth’s writings over the period 1794 to 1814 in contemporary discourses of the Gothic. My investigation pivots upon the analogy offered in the preface to The Excursion (1814) between the incomplete epic poem The Recluse and a ‘gothic Church’, and aims, through a reconstruction of its literary and historical contexts, to establish the interpretative value of this figure in reading Wordsworth. I begin with a survey of previous critical approaches to, and a new close reading of, Wordsworth’s Gothic figure for his œuvre. I then trace the history of Gothic as a term in British public discourse since the English Revolution, showing how its contested status in the Revolution controversy of the 1790s inflects such texts as the preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800), the ‘Liberty’ sonnets of Poems, in Two Volumes (1807), and the Preamble to The Prelude. I then move to a series of detailed historical readings of Wordsworth’s key Gothic texts, starting with Salisbury Plain (1794). Recovering the network of associations that made Salisbury Plain legible to Wordsworth in 1793-4 as a map of British history, I show how the poem first subverts and then restores the English Gothic narrative of ‘Celtic night’ giving way to ‘present grandeur’. I then turn to Wordsworth’s Burkean prose tract on the Napoleonic Wars in Spain, The Convention of Cintra (1809), reading it in the context of the Gothic imagery of the conflict, and then arguing on this basis that it forms a vital part of the ‘gothic Church’ of The Recluse. Building upon this reading, I then argue that The Excursion’s advocacy of Andrew Bell’s ‘Madras’ system of ‘tuition by the scholars themselves’ shows Wordsworth’s progressive Gothic politics in action. In concluding, I turn to reconsider, in the light of the preceding chapters, in what sense Wordsworth can be called a Gothic poet.
2007-06-22T00:00:00ZDuggett, Thomas J EThis thesis argues for the deep implication of William Wordsworth’s writings over the period 1794 to 1814 in contemporary discourses of the Gothic. My investigation pivots upon the analogy offered in the preface to The Excursion (1814) between the incomplete epic poem The Recluse and a ‘gothic Church’, and aims, through a reconstruction of its literary and historical contexts, to establish the interpretative value of this figure in reading Wordsworth. I begin with a survey of previous critical approaches to, and a new close reading of, Wordsworth’s Gothic figure for his œuvre. I then trace the history of Gothic as a term in British public discourse since the English Revolution, showing how its contested status in the Revolution controversy of the 1790s inflects such texts as the preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800), the ‘Liberty’ sonnets of Poems, in Two Volumes (1807), and the Preamble to The Prelude. I then move to a series of detailed historical readings of Wordsworth’s key Gothic texts, starting with Salisbury Plain (1794). Recovering the network of associations that made Salisbury Plain legible to Wordsworth in 1793-4 as a map of British history, I show how the poem first subverts and then restores the English Gothic narrative of ‘Celtic night’ giving way to ‘present grandeur’. I then turn to Wordsworth’s Burkean prose tract on the Napoleonic Wars in Spain, The Convention of Cintra (1809), reading it in the context of the Gothic imagery of the conflict, and then arguing on this basis that it forms a vital part of the ‘gothic Church’ of The Recluse. Building upon this reading, I then argue that The Excursion’s advocacy of Andrew Bell’s ‘Madras’ system of ‘tuition by the scholars themselves’ shows Wordsworth’s progressive Gothic politics in action. In concluding, I turn to reconsider, in the light of the preceding chapters, in what sense Wordsworth can be called a Gothic poet.Rising Starhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/321
Rising Star is a novel about appearances. Thailand Allen is a girl who thinks she understands what she sees. But when what she sees are cracks in her perfect world, maturation and new sight are not far off. Before growth can occur, Thailand must undergo a painful process of learning that carries with it embarrassment, sorrow, anger and confusion.
Thailand lives with her mother in a small Texas town called Rising Star. Rising Star is like every other small town with its community gatherings, quirky characters, lavish holiday festivals and wizened elders. But in one way, the town is different. The children of Rising Star can fly.
Thailand and her friends are nearing the age of Dreaming, a part of the painful process of maturity that exchanges flight for vivid dreams and at times, prophetic visions. The knowledge that she will soon be grounded brings Thailand a great deal of fear and embarrassment. But these things are soon complicated by a seemingly unconnected mystery. After the discovery of a lost safe deposit key, Thailand and her friends explore record rooms and a Newspaper Office, uncovering mysterious letters and long forgotten newspaper articles that have some connection with the school bully, Paul Rampling. But Thailand soon learns there is more to this discovery than mere intrigue. Her search for answers will take her to an unexpected place, a place where her mother is not who she thought she was, and where her own identity is brought into question.
2007-06-22T00:00:00ZWorley, ChristianaRising Star is a novel about appearances. Thailand Allen is a girl who thinks she understands what she sees. But when what she sees are cracks in her perfect world, maturation and new sight are not far off. Before growth can occur, Thailand must undergo a painful process of learning that carries with it embarrassment, sorrow, anger and confusion.
Thailand lives with her mother in a small Texas town called Rising Star. Rising Star is like every other small town with its community gatherings, quirky characters, lavish holiday festivals and wizened elders. But in one way, the town is different. The children of Rising Star can fly.
Thailand and her friends are nearing the age of Dreaming, a part of the painful process of maturity that exchanges flight for vivid dreams and at times, prophetic visions. The knowledge that she will soon be grounded brings Thailand a great deal of fear and embarrassment. But these things are soon complicated by a seemingly unconnected mystery. After the discovery of a lost safe deposit key, Thailand and her friends explore record rooms and a Newspaper Office, uncovering mysterious letters and long forgotten newspaper articles that have some connection with the school bully, Paul Rampling. But Thailand soon learns there is more to this discovery than mere intrigue. Her search for answers will take her to an unexpected place, a place where her mother is not who she thought she was, and where her own identity is brought into question.'A far green country' : an analysis of the presentation of nature in works of early mythopoeic fantasy fictionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/313
This study undertakes an examination of the representation of nature in works of literature that it regards as early British ‘mythopoeic fantasy’. By this term the thesis understands that fantasy fiction which is fundamentally concerned with myth or myth-making. It is the contention of the study that the connection of these works with myth or the idea of myth is integral to their presentation of nature. Specifically, this study identifies a connection between the idea of nature presented in these novels and the thought of the late-Victorian era regarding nature, primitivism, myth and the impulse behind mythopoesis. It is argued that this conceptual background is responsible for the notion of nature as a virtuous force of spiritual redemption in opposition to modernity and in particular to the dominant modern ideological model of scientific materialism. The thesis begins by examining late-Victorian sensibilities regarding myth and nature, before exposing correlative ideas in selected case studies of authors whose work it posits to be primarily mythopoeic in intent. The first of these studies considers the work of Henry Rider Haggard, the second examines Scottish writer David Lindsay, and the third looks at the mythopoeic endeavours of J. R. R. Tolkien, the latter standing alone among the authors considered in these central case studies in producing fiction under a fully developed theory of mythopoesis. The perspective is then widened in the final chapter, allowing consideration of authors such as William Morris and H. G. Wells. The study attempts to demonstrate the prevalence of an identifiable conceptual model of nature in the period it considers to constitute the age of early mythopoeic fantasy fiction, which it conceives to date from the late-Victorian era to the apotheosis of Tolkien’s work.
2007-06-01T00:00:00ZLangwith, Mark J.This study undertakes an examination of the representation of nature in works of literature that it regards as early British ‘mythopoeic fantasy’. By this term the thesis understands that fantasy fiction which is fundamentally concerned with myth or myth-making. It is the contention of the study that the connection of these works with myth or the idea of myth is integral to their presentation of nature. Specifically, this study identifies a connection between the idea of nature presented in these novels and the thought of the late-Victorian era regarding nature, primitivism, myth and the impulse behind mythopoesis. It is argued that this conceptual background is responsible for the notion of nature as a virtuous force of spiritual redemption in opposition to modernity and in particular to the dominant modern ideological model of scientific materialism. The thesis begins by examining late-Victorian sensibilities regarding myth and nature, before exposing correlative ideas in selected case studies of authors whose work it posits to be primarily mythopoeic in intent. The first of these studies considers the work of Henry Rider Haggard, the second examines Scottish writer David Lindsay, and the third looks at the mythopoeic endeavours of J. R. R. Tolkien, the latter standing alone among the authors considered in these central case studies in producing fiction under a fully developed theory of mythopoesis. The perspective is then widened in the final chapter, allowing consideration of authors such as William Morris and H. G. Wells. The study attempts to demonstrate the prevalence of an identifiable conceptual model of nature in the period it considers to constitute the age of early mythopoeic fantasy fiction, which it conceives to date from the late-Victorian era to the apotheosis of Tolkien’s work.Journey towards the (m)other : myth, origins and the daughter's desires in the fiction of Angela Carterhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/148
This study examines Angela Carter’s demythologising of origin myths and will
investigate the extent to which her fictions offer viable alternatives that allow for
productive representations of women and gender relations outside patriarchal paradigms.
In the first half of the thesis (Chapters 1-3), I will primarily focus on how several of
Carter’s earlier texts deconstruct existing mythical spaces, particularly the biblical
creation story in Genesis. The Genesis myth is central to socio-historical constructions of
gendered identities, and in itself, central to Carter’s imagination. She repeatedly returns
to this myth in her challenging of the ways in which patriarchal narratives construct
violent relations between self and other, specifically where ‘woman’ is situated as the
repressed other of male desires and fears. Alongside her demythologising of Genesis,
Carter deconstructs Freudian myths of sexual maturation, exposing where these also set
up a relationship of antagonism or enmity between the sexes. Although Chapter One will
explore how Carter attempts to revise these origin myths from a positive stance, Two and
Three will focus on the inherent difficulties faced by the female subject in her struggle
against patriarchal myths and their violent oppression of female autonomy. The second
half of the thesis (Chapters 4-6) will shift to an investigation of how Carter’s later texts
set up both possibilities and challenges for women when attempting to construct their
own narratives of origin. Through her problematising of matriarchal myths and feminist
fantasies of self-creation, Carter emphasises the need for confronting limitations rather
than celebrating transgressions as entirely liberating. The thesis will conclude, however,
with an examination of where Carter’s own attempts at remythologising opens up an
alternative space, or ‘elsewhere’, of feminine desires that allows for a refiguring of the
female subject as well as more reciprocal relations between the sexes.
2007-01-01T00:00:00ZJennings, HopeThis study examines Angela Carter’s demythologising of origin myths and will
investigate the extent to which her fictions offer viable alternatives that allow for
productive representations of women and gender relations outside patriarchal paradigms.
In the first half of the thesis (Chapters 1-3), I will primarily focus on how several of
Carter’s earlier texts deconstruct existing mythical spaces, particularly the biblical
creation story in Genesis. The Genesis myth is central to socio-historical constructions of
gendered identities, and in itself, central to Carter’s imagination. She repeatedly returns
to this myth in her challenging of the ways in which patriarchal narratives construct
violent relations between self and other, specifically where ‘woman’ is situated as the
repressed other of male desires and fears. Alongside her demythologising of Genesis,
Carter deconstructs Freudian myths of sexual maturation, exposing where these also set
up a relationship of antagonism or enmity between the sexes. Although Chapter One will
explore how Carter attempts to revise these origin myths from a positive stance, Two and
Three will focus on the inherent difficulties faced by the female subject in her struggle
against patriarchal myths and their violent oppression of female autonomy. The second
half of the thesis (Chapters 4-6) will shift to an investigation of how Carter’s later texts
set up both possibilities and challenges for women when attempting to construct their
own narratives of origin. Through her problematising of matriarchal myths and feminist
fantasies of self-creation, Carter emphasises the need for confronting limitations rather
than celebrating transgressions as entirely liberating. The thesis will conclude, however,
with an examination of where Carter’s own attempts at remythologising opens up an
alternative space, or ‘elsewhere’, of feminine desires that allows for a refiguring of the
female subject as well as more reciprocal relations between the sexes.D. H. Lawrence and narrative designhttp://hdl.handle.net/10023/141
Lawrence's work has almost invevitably been read as an aesthetic production whereby one must eventually agree or disagree with his vision of "reality". Those who assume a formalist standard of taste often find that Lawrence "loses control" of his material; those who offer ideological apologies for his work argue that disruptions in the aesthetic plane are representative of an exploratory genius, often seen as the outstanding characteristic of literary modernism. Both approaches, explicitly or otherwise , rely on the ultimate sanction of the achieved image, transmuted by the author always in control of his material. Yet anyone who reads Lawrence with an eye to to what the "tale" says in addition to what the "teller" claims discovers that Lawrence is not in full control of his material, thought it cannot simply be argued, on aesthetic or linguistic criteria, that he is out of control. Rather, there exists a "third" state whereby Lawrence both writes and is written, gives us a message with one hand, yet retracts, as it were, with the other. Because this double-move is preeminently suited to the language of fiction, and because it appears in Lawrence's fiction with the greatest versatility and incisiveness, this dissertation analyzes six of his novels for their rhetorical significance, understood as both an organization of tropes and figures and as a system of persuasive doctrine. A new definition for allegory is proposed, the introductions of thematic and structural "blanks" is examined, and a spread of narrative delays are identified and discussed, all concerned with the central problem of writing novels that direct themselves to the resurrection of a pre-linguistic universe, yet ironically depend more and more upon writing to bring this about. Ideas drawn from Continental philosophy and recent critical theory are incorporated for support and instruction. Attention is also focused on Lawrence's revision processes, often with specific emphasis on unpublished manuscript material.
1990-09-07T00:00:00ZElliott, JohnLawrence's work has almost invevitably been read as an aesthetic production whereby one must eventually agree or disagree with his vision of "reality". Those who assume a formalist standard of taste often find that Lawrence "loses control" of his material; those who offer ideological apologies for his work argue that disruptions in the aesthetic plane are representative of an exploratory genius, often seen as the outstanding characteristic of literary modernism. Both approaches, explicitly or otherwise , rely on the ultimate sanction of the achieved image, transmuted by the author always in control of his material. Yet anyone who reads Lawrence with an eye to to what the "tale" says in addition to what the "teller" claims discovers that Lawrence is not in full control of his material, thought it cannot simply be argued, on aesthetic or linguistic criteria, that he is out of control. Rather, there exists a "third" state whereby Lawrence both writes and is written, gives us a message with one hand, yet retracts, as it were, with the other. Because this double-move is preeminently suited to the language of fiction, and because it appears in Lawrence's fiction with the greatest versatility and incisiveness, this dissertation analyzes six of his novels for their rhetorical significance, understood as both an organization of tropes and figures and as a system of persuasive doctrine. A new definition for allegory is proposed, the introductions of thematic and structural "blanks" is examined, and a spread of narrative delays are identified and discussed, all concerned with the central problem of writing novels that direct themselves to the resurrection of a pre-linguistic universe, yet ironically depend more and more upon writing to bring this about. Ideas drawn from Continental philosophy and recent critical theory are incorporated for support and instruction. Attention is also focused on Lawrence's revision processes, often with specific emphasis on unpublished manuscript material.